My mother had a cousin, named E.... R......... Apparently ER put together a media empire of sorts, tv stations etc. etc; used to show up in Winnipeg in the 1950's driving a big geezly finned Cadillac of sorts, flashing diamonds and talking loudly. Had to love the guy. Whenever ER started a long rambling story, and in particular whenever he talked business or personal success, he started it with the now famous opening line in our family for any long and rambling story…..”It All Started At A Forty Watt Radio Station in Saskatoon”….
It's a funny thing about dreams, you gotta reach out and make them happen.
I have a fine friend named M..., who's one of those talented people you run across from time to time that make a difference in your life. M... owns a company here in Seattle, and he manufactures sport kites. He's the best in the world at what he does, and in the little world of kites, he's Michaelangelo, or more likely, Leonardo Da Vinci.
I met him because I was looking for sunshine.
As my second marriage was dissolving into catastrophe I would come home from work evenings and want sunshine. Our house was on the east slope of a hillside, and in shadow by that time of day. Nearby was the old Sand Point Naval Air Station, now a public park called Warren Magnusson Park. It's on Lake Washington. If you look down the lake on a summer evening, you can see the most beautiful volcano hanging in the sky, Mt. Rainier.
When they decommissioned the runways, they piled up the concrete onsite, and it became a hillside; the local kite community got together and removed all the scotch-broom, and now it's a lovely grassy slope with a view to die for, called Kite Hill.
Because it sticks out into the lake, it gets evening sun, and one day I wandered on up there and saw all the kite fliers. Now, when I had lived in Victoria, BC, I had flown kites, but somehow this time it kicked in as something I'd really like to do.
So I became a sport kite flier, and really began to enjoy it. Turns out, the kite I bought was a P...m kite, and it also turns out that that particular hilltop was the place where M... had filmed the videos that he used to include with his products. Kite fliers from all over the world would make pilgrimages to this place; it was astonishing.
Over time, I met M..., and we started talking business, and other kinds of things. He was just getting his private pilot's license, and I'd always been interested in aviation, like yourself, and had the standard profile of somebody who once upon a long time ago had accumulated a few hours, but then allowed life to get in the way.
A few years went by. My marriage dissolved, and one day M... asked me if I'd like to join him in a sweet old Stinson for a flight down to Portland. Duh! Like most pilots, when we were in the air, he handed me the controls. About twenty minutes later he took them back and said "you know, most times when I hand the controls to somebody, we spend five minutes porpoising and swerving all over the sky. You've held an altitude and a heading for twenty minutes. You should fly!"
"Nah" I said, "I'm too old, too poor, too much baggage, that dream is gone....." He turned his head, looked me square in the eyes, and said "YOU SHOULD FLY!" At that moment some little bell went off in my head that said "If not now, when? He's right, I've always wanted to be a pilot, and I do NOT want to be on my deathbed saying to myself 'dammit, I could have flown' "
Given that I have MANY challenges, it STILL took another three years. But, one day a few years ago only, a designated examiner from the FAA sat down at a crappy old typewriter, tapped out a few letters on a tiny piece of paper and handed it to me, and said "Congratulations Mr. W....., you're a pilot!"
And then I did a pre-flight, got back into the airplane that I'd flown up to Bellingham for the exam (since you can fly solo as a student, as long as your instructor has signed you off) and called the ground control for permission to taxi for takeoff..... "Good afternoon Bellingham Ground, Cessna Skyhawk November 5... Echo, GA Terminal with Information Charlie, Taxi for Southbound Departure."
"Five ...... Echo, Taxi to Runway One Six."
Now, by this time of day, it was sundown, and beyond; I'd have had to stay overnight if I'd failed my exam, because student pilots are not allowed to fly solo at night regardless. On the off chance that I DID fail the exam, M... was staying at his cabin on D..... , a private island in the San Juans just southwest of Bellingham. D......'s got a grass runway (with lights, activated by the pilot on the radio) and I'd dropped in there as a student once, and been in many times in the right seat with M....
It's a dangerous landing however, because there's a mountain at the other end, so you CANNOT execute a "go-around"; once you're on final approach over the meadow, you MUST get the plane onto the ground.
I'd planned this day for months, and I'd had a chance to look at an astronomical calendar, and I knew that it was going to be the night of a full moon."Bellingham Tower, Cessna Skyhawk November Five Five One Two Echo, ready at One Six, southbound departure.....!"
And then came the COOLEST radio call I've yet ever heard."Cessna 5512 Echo, cleared for takeoff Runway One Six, southbound departure approved. We understand congratulations are in order?"
Blow me away with a feather duster, the examiner had talked to the tower guys....."Uh, affirmative tower, and thanks. Cleared for takeoff, One Two Echo...!"
And off I went, my first takeoff as a private pilot, heart soaring, damned near singing into the microphones. Glanced over to my left, but no moonrise yet. Was heading to D......., to drop in on M...., and his aircraft partner S....., who was also waiting to see what had happened on the exam.
Pilot buddies. What a blessing. Got over D......, decided to overfly the runway crosswise, checking for deer, who graze it at sundown. Deer and airplanes on landing do NOT mix well. Clicked my microphone to turn on the runway lights. Nothing happened. Realized that I did NOT have the right frequency tuned in to activate them but worse, did NOT have the frequency committed to memory, and because it's a private runway, none of my charts or books were gonna help.
Damn, now I have to head back to Paine Field in Everett; just then, the runway lights came on. S...., hearing me overfly, and realizing my dilemma, had figured it out, and turned them on. So, my first landing as a private pilot was at night, onto a grass runway with deer grazing on it, and a mountain at the other end waiting to reach out and kill me. Possibly not the best exercise in good aviation judgement?
We shook hands, laughed, shot the shit for a while, and then it was time to go home. M... asked whether he could bum a ride home with me. Now, I'd been flying with lots of instructors, but my chief instructor was M.... He's not a certified flight instructor, but he's the best pilot of ALL the people I've flown with, and he had spent hundreds of hours with me in the cockpit of S.....'s Cessna 180; in fact, when I got my certificate I probably had a lot more experience than many do, including a fair amount of actual instrument flying conditions, which you don't do as a wet behind the ears private. That comes a lot later.
So, when M..... asked me for the ride home, S...... would take the 180 back to Paine, I said of course, and realized that THIS was ACTUALLY my final exam. I'd never been in the left seat of an airplane with him, never landed nor taken off with him, because the 180 is a taildragger and one needs a special endorsement to do the landings and takeoffs in it. By the way, I'm almost finished that endorsment now.
We back taxied down the runway toward the mountain, in the dark, carefully looking for deer in the taxi lights. We turned facing south, having completed the runup, which is the final moment you check to make sure all systems are go, and he said "OK, now, when you lift the nose off the runway tonight, everything is going to be pitch black; there's no lights out over the water as a visual reference, you CAN'T tell the difference between the ground and the sky, and you just need to fly on instruments like I've taught you.....use the attitude indicator to keep the wings level and the nose pitched up slightly, use the rate of climb indicator to establish that you have a positive rate of climb, and make sure that your airspeed is Vy (which is a known quantity, the best rate of climb); if you do that, then everything is going to be just fine.
Now, you'd think there'd be a bit of heart pounding going on, but there wasn't. It was just, OK, I've flown this puppy many times, I've flown with M.... many times, it's just a takeoff, nothing's any different except I can't SEE squat, off we go!
As we lifted off I had everything squared away just the way it was supposed to be. I'd dialed in the radios to contact Whidbey Naval Airstation, whose airspace I would be intruding upon about two minutes after liftoff, and everything was tickety-boo. So I allowed myself the opportunity to glance over to the left, toward the Cascade Mountains, fully expecting to see a gorgeous full moon, as it was a perfectly clear night.
Instead, there was deep yellow sliver of a moon out on the horizon, just sneaking over the tops of the mountains."Now THAT's a lunar eclipse" I said, and I was right, it was true, I'd had NO idea that it was going to happen, but sure enough, my first night takeoff as a pilot, and my first takeoff with my best friend where I was pilot in command? A VERY GOOD omen! At least, that's how I chose to take it, because the other choice was not too promising..
Now that night four years earlier with M...., coming home from Portland, it had been just before Christmas, and there'd been ground fog in all the valleys, and shining UP through the ground fog were all the Christmas lights of all the houses. Magic glow. And, looking around in the crystal sky, there were all the twinkling anti-collision lights of all the planes in the sky, as if we were swimming in some magic fishbowl.
But coming home from Bellingham, with ME doing the flying, and a full moon slowly revealing itself from a lunar eclipse over the forty minutes in flight? I will NEVER forget that night, and if I NEVER fly again, I will always have those moments.
And if YOU want to fly, then DO IT! Don't listen to the little voices saying you can't, you can't afford it, you're too old, you're too whatever. Just get into your car one day, drive out to the airport, and walk into the flight school. Tell them Jeremy sent you.
And tell them it all started at a forty watt radio station in Saskatoon.
© J....... W......, 2005
