View From My Cockpit
I had parked at the airport many times over that last month to watch the airplanes take off and land but until last week, had never ventured into the flight school building before. The parking lot afforded a good view of the airport. Beyond the rows of parked airplanes, lie the runway. Some days, someone would be getting ready to fly his aircraft and I could watch as he walked around, pulling this, pushing that, making things move on the wings or lifting something at the back. If he left his door open, you could see inside the airplane. It was all so strange and so exciting. Past the parked airplanes, I could look to my left and see airplanes coming down and then disappearing behind the parked aircraft. I could also hear aircraft engines getting louder and then see an airplane take off. Because of the parked airplanes, I was not actually able to see the runway but it was exciting to watch and imagine what it would be like. I finally got the nerve to go inside the office, which was an old blue two- room Quonset hut with an old tattered TAG Flight School sign atop. The fellow at the desk had been quite forthcoming with the information and after explaining how to go about learning to fly and the costs involved, suggested that I might want to take an intro flight. I was excited until he told me what the cost would be. Ten dollars! That was about five dollars more than I had. I remembered that I did have some money saved so I figured what the heck. As an eighteen-year-old just starting classes at the local community college, I was more often than not broke. My parents had moved out here from the city only three months before and I was truly lost in this new area. My old friends were still in the city; I knew almost nobody and I truly hated the area. Then, while driving home one day, I saw an airplane flying very low and I thought maybe he was going to crash. I followed him as best I could and about a mile down the road, I came across this little airport. After that, I stopped at Ramapo Valley Airport every afternoon to watch the planes on the way home from school. I was mesmerized. This was something I always wanted to do. The next afternoon, after class, I drove over to the airport. I was introduced to a young man who did not seem to be more than five years older than me. He looked really cool though, wearing a brown leather jacket and really big, dark sunglasses. He seemed to be expecting me and after saying a quick hello, reached over the counter to where small metal matching clipboards were hanging on the wall. He picked up a clipboard, with a key dangling from one side, then glancing over to the gentleman I had spoken to the day before, stated, “We’ll take 924” and out the door he went. After a moment of wondering if I should follow, I walked out of the small office and followed him across the parking lot. He swung open the gate and glanced back, holding the gate open for me. A large sign on the gate clearly stated “Pilots and Aircraft Owners Only.” I waited there until he turned back and stated that since I was taking my first lesson, I was a pilot now. We walked down the five steps to the tarmac and I could not help being absolutely fascinated to be walking right on the very ground where aircraft were parked. Prior to this, the closest I had ever gotten to an airplane was looking thru the glass windows at LaGuardia Airport. To my left, five airplanes were lined up and to my right, four more. They were all different colors, with big numbers on the sides. Yet, they all looked exactly the same. Each airplane had a different number but each had a big bird on the tail with the word Skyhawk under it in script lettering. Must be Skyhawk Airlines, I surmised, but how can an airline have these small airplanes? At eighteen, you want to seem cool so I asked no questions. The guy I was following, I found out later, was named Bill Savage. He led me to the third aircraft on the left side, a gold and white one with the big numbers 12924 on the side. He unlocked the door, put the clipboard on the seat and began to explain about preflight inspections, walking around the aircraft, showing me what does what and why the airplane does the things it does. I had never actually touched an airplane before. Here I was, on sacred airport ground, actually touching an aircraft. Shock was not the proper description when Bill told me I would be sitting in the pilot’s chair. Despite my constant reminder to remain cool, I blurted out that I did not know how to fly. After assurances that he did, we climbed aboard. The aircraft smelled new. There were a million gauges staring back at me. Then the propeller roared to life and we were driving out between the airplanes and there it was, the runway I had never been able to see from the parking lot. Bill raced the engine and then pulled something back out and it got quiet again and he said we were ready to go. I was ready to go home!
Bill told me to rest my left hand on the steering wheel and then he pushed in that thing again and the airplane got really loud. Bill was yelling in my ear that he was going to pull the steering wheel back slightly. We roared down the runway and then the front lifted and it seemed to get quieter and smoother and then we were flying. It was the most incredible feeling. The ground fell away and Bill was smiling and then after awhile I noticed his hands were no longer on the wheel. I was flying. He showed me how to make turns and to make the airplane go up and down. Too soon, we were looking down at the runway in front of us and the wheels chirped as we touched the ground again. The airplane must have known where it was supposed to go cause Bill never even touched the steering wheel as we pulled back up to the parking spot. When we walked back into the office; the fellow at the desk, whose name I later learned was Al Gavassi, asked how I liked it. I could not even describe my feelings. It was awesome! For the next hour, my biggest challenge was not if I was going to continue but how I was going to pay for flight lessons I could not possibly afford but would never again be able to live without.
I actually took eight more intro flights before I took my first lesson. I kept paying for the ten dollar lessons because the twenty dollars for the hourly aircraft rental plus ten dollars for the instructor was surely only something rich folks could afford and I was the very furthest thing from rich. I was broke. Broke and forever hooked! I received my pilot’s license a year later. I worked at the airport, fueling airplanes, getting an employee discount and even washing Bill’s white Pontiac Firebird to get free lessons. That was 1974. So much in the world has changed. Aviation has changed. The cost of learning to fly has changed. Airport fences have changed. But a lot has not changed. Every day, men and women, young and old, are sitting at airport fences, watching the aircraft take off and land, not quite able to see the runway but knowing it is out there. Not quite being able to see how they can possibly afford to do this and yet knowing it is out there for them and not quite understanding how they can learn to fly. Today, more than thirty three years later, as a flight instructor, one of my favorite activities is taking that potential pilot up for his or her first discovery flight. Taking a potential new student through the gate marked Pilots and Aircraft Owners only, and assuring him that as a new student pilot, he is about to join that exclusive fraternity. He will spend the next half hour in the left seat, the captain’s seat, experiencing climbs, descents, turns and level flight, seeing the world from a much different viewpoint. Knowing that if he has the desire that I had, so many years ago, he will be unable to ever forget the experience they are enjoying today. He has experienced the miracle of flight and life will forever be changed. He is hooked, just as I was so many years ago.
By Mike Freed