It has been a while since I have had time to write for fun. This is one story of two which has been coming back into my mind. They really don’t have any lesson to teach except, perhaps, that sometimes it is fun to look back at events in your life and have a laugh.
This first story started during my last time in Monterey and completed while in England. I was stationed with a friend who, along with his wife, was a flight instructor. Many times, during our discussions, he would often try to convince me to take up flying as a hobby. Since I was single and with few responsibilities, I decided to take him up on his offer. I tested out of ground school and soon took the air.
I started looking forward to the weekends for my time in the air. Though I was a flyer in the Air Force, my job was not in the cockpit. There is something so cool about flying when the yoke is in your hands. We flew out of Watsonville, a small airport with little more than a runway and some taxi ways. The airport was uncontrolled which means that the pilots talk to each other and work together to avoid incidences. I loved flying there and going out over the ocean. While I managed to get my first solo done, the rest of my training would have to take place when I went back home to England.
In East Anglia, we had two bases that had runways and towers. The aeroclub flew out of the base that housed the fighters. I thought flying in a little airport was fun, but it held nothing to flying in and out of the base. Knowing that you had F-16s waiting behind you to take-off was both funny and nerve wracking. They had to wait for the small, slow plane to get to a certain point for them to take off. It was also interesting to be told to leave the pattern due to an F-16 declaring an IFE (in-flight emergency) only to find out later that apparently, they would call these when they really had to use the bathroom (I never got proof of that).
One day while puttering around the pattern, the control tower asked to go play at the other airfield a few miles away. Some exercise or something was going on, and they wanted to keep the pattern open for the fighters. So, we went full throttle over to the other base. We were working on full stops and take offs. We would land, stop on the runway, reset the flaps for take-off, and full speed ahead for another go.
This was the first time for me at this base. This base was where the larger aircraft lived and were worked on. I did the first landing, cleaned up the aircraft (resetting the flaps), and took off. I noticed that the wind played with the plane as I moved down the runway. My instructor told me that that was normal for this base.
We went around in the pattern and came in for a full-stop. I called the control tower requesting permission for take-off. The tower came back with the permission and when it came to information, and I will never forget this, I received, “The winds are…the winds are…the winds are variable.” I looked at my instructor who waved his hand forward. I went full throttle and started down the runway.
I could feel the plane being pushed one way and then another. I felt my hands tighten on the yoke. I reached the speed to pull back and lift the front of the plane. Up we started to go. The winds changed again, and the nose went down, I pulled up. The changed again and now my nose was too high (I feared a stall). I kept correcting and they kept changing.
As we kept ascending and adjusting, I get a call from the tower, “Ahhh N972 (not sure of the callsign anymore) do you require assistance?” By this time, we are already 400 feet and climbing. I looked at my instructor and yelled, “Assistance???? What the hell are they going to do, get a ladder and climb up here?”
My instructor calmly clicked the mic and replied, “No. We are fine.” We decided it was time to leave the pattern and take a nice quiet flight. Once out of the pattern, I asked my instructor why he didn’t help. He told me that it was my plane, and that I was doing fine.
Unfortunately, due to being color deficient, I was not allowed to fly at night. Living in England in the winter meant that flying was really cut down to a few hours of the day. I decided I had other things to do with my money and never finished my license.
While I will most likely never be in control of a plane again, I will never forget having someone offer to help me when I was in the air. On a side note, I found out a couple of months later, that my friend was the safety office in the tower that day. He told me he had his hand on the crash button during my take-off.