“My Plane”

My father was a pilot in the Navy Air Corps during World War Two. Aside from his wife and children, flying was the love of his life. He was scheduled to participate in the airborne invasion of Japan in November 1945. If it hadn’t been for a couple of firecrackers dropped in August of that year I might not be sitting here writing this. Upon retiring from the Navy after the war he was offered several jobs in Florida to fly for commercial airlines. However, he declined in order to take care of his widowed mother back in Chicago. An engineering degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology set him on another course. His dream had long been to own and operate his own manufacturing company. I was with him at the bank on the morning that dream was realized. The company was over a million dollars in debt but, it was his. I suggested we go out and celebrate. He liked the idea but, said he had an appointment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital that afternoon and drove directly to the hospital on his own. We never celebrated; he never set foot in the company once he owned it and he never left the hospital alive. I had a ticket to Paris the next month where I planned to devote myself to becoming a writer. As it turned out, my newly widowed mother depended on that company for her livelihood so; I left my bachelor pad, moved in with her for a year and worked at that damn company with my youngest brother for the next 14 years. By the time I finally set off, mother had been pretty well taken care of…mostly because of my brother. I settled into a coconut wood bungalow on an island in the Gulf of Siam to begin the pursuit of my dream.

During those 14 years in limbo I decided to find out why my father was so impassioned about flying. An interview was scheduled with the flight school director at a small airfield northwest of Chicago named Palwaukee Municipal Airport. Behind the director was a large window overlooking one of the two runways. Just as the director was saying that safety was the school’s number one priority, a Cessna 172 roared into view skidding along the concrete and shooting up a shower of menacing looking sparks. The director turned in obvious agitation and, after collecting himself, said, “Damn! Another gear-up landing…oh, well.”

By the way, a gear-up landing is when the plane lands without the wheels being down.

I’d heard far more harrowing stories about flying from my father so, I was undeterred and signed up for flight instruction.

The training Cessna 172 planes were equipped with dual controls and all the flight instructors were U.S. Air Force Academy graduates. The first thing they said to a student pilot was, “When I say, ‘My plane’ you get your hands and feet off the controls immediately.” During the course of the next 3 months, I probably heard that expression a record number of times.

Upon taxying up to the runway for my maiden flight, the instructor (Mike) asked if I’d like to take off on my own. “Just do as I say.” So, I did. Get up to speed and take off at 60 knots. No problem. As it turned out, taking off was a walk in the park. Landing proved to be the problem. People who know me might suggest that that rather sums up the story of my life.

However, while cruising at ten thousand feet on a beautiful clear day in the early Fall, I began to understand why my father loved to fly. It’s a special invigorating thrill to be up in the sky above the traffic and the trees, above the people and the birds and perhaps, mostly, above the humdrum cacophony of mundane earthly concerns. For me, it was also a way to experience a kinship with my father…a kinship which, sadly, we seldom enjoyed while he was alive. 

By the end of November, the weather prohibited further training and I was running out of money anyway. Mike took me up one more time for a final attempt at landing We did 3 or 4 go-arounds without success and Mike suggested we give it another shot in the Spring. “I’ve had students who were landing and soloing after 10 hours,” he said. “You’ve been up for 20 hours. What the hell is your problem, Mac?” I was about to say something but, since we were still in the air, I bit my tongue. Damn, if it didn’t hurt sometin’ fierce.

 We (Mike) landed the plane and pulled into the petrol station to top up our tanks. Then I took the controls to taxi towards the hangar. One thing I had learned was that planes are meant to fly. They don’t handle as well on the ground as in the air plus I was sort of pissed off…angry and disappointed with myself. “Why don’t these damn things have rear-view mirrors?” I asked. Mike gave me a look similar to the one I’d get from my father occasionally and much more often from my Jesuit professors. It indicated that, instead of being answered, the question was being dismissed.

  We started to ease along the tarmac and, for whatever reason, I sped up and began to lose control. Some guy was sauntering along about a hundred yards in front of us. When he heard the roar of the propeller he spun around like a whirling dervish and froze. I still remember the look of horror and bulging eyeballs on his face. ‘My plane”, yelled Mike. Bit the tongue again while removing my hands and feet from the controls…immediately!

When the plane had come to a stop Mike said, “Jesus Christ! You see who that guy was?”

“No. Just one terrified son-of-a-bitch, I’d say.”

“That was Elton John, you crazy loon. See, there’s his Gulfstream III. He’s in town to do a concert at the Rosemont Horizon tonight.”

“You planning to go?”

“No, too much money for me.”