Solo

On my way to work the other day, I heard the unmistakable sound of a small airplane cruising overhead. I looked up to see a plane I recognized immediately, and I was transported back to 1973 - to a place about 2000 feet above the ground near Dayton, Ohio.

The players:

• General Stan Czyzak - flight instructor
• 1st Lt Roie R. Black - student pilot
• Cessna 150 - tail number N16188 (a nice little yellow two seat private airplane)

(This is as close as I can get to the plane, sadly, it is no more!)

Now, in spite of all of this seeming to be Air Force related, this was an Aero Club airplane, not a military craft, and I was working on my Private Pilot's license as a personal thing, not to become a military pilot. Stan (General Stan to everyone but me in the plane) was a nice PhD Astrophysicist, who liked to teach people how to fly, and I was eager to learn

On this particluar day, we were flying from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base toward Xenia, Ohio.

Stan: How about swinging up to Springfield Airport and shoot a few touch and go's (pilot talk for taking off and landing!)

Roie: Sure - sounds like fun (anything the General says has got to be fun!)

We turn toward the North, and in about 20 minutes enter the traffic pattern at Springfield. We do about three touch and go landings where as soon as you have the plane fully under control on the ground after a landing, you put the power in and take off again. On the third landing General Stan says:

Stan: Pull up to a full stop

Roie: Yes sir!

Stan: (as he opens the door and climbs out!) Go around the pattern again, and if you don't kill yourself, I will wave you around a few more times.

Roie: (to himself) Yikes!

The door slams, and I am in a real airplane, engine running, by myself and in control alone for the very first time. I have dreamed about this moment since that fine day as an 8 year old when I first found myself captivated by airplanes and flight. I probably started sweating, but I don't remember that. Instead, I look around to see if any other planes are trying to take off or land (none are), then I pick up the mike on the radio:

Roie: Springfield traffic, this is Cessna 16188 taking the active runway at Springfield.

Boy, that was dumb. I am sitting here in the middle of the runway, I already took the durned thing!

I push the throttle in and the little craft starts accellerating down the runway. Just like always, I work the rudder pedals to keep her straight down the runway, then pull the steering wheel (Yoke to us pilots) back and hold it until the nose tips up. Then as we continue speeding up, the craft lifts off the runway and I am flying solo for the very first time. I did not have time to be scared; nervous, maybe, and busy for sure. I have to watch my airspeed, make sure I turn away from the runway and climb up to pattern altitude then get ready for the turn back to the runway for the landing.

For one moment there, I experienced for the first time what it feels like to be a pilot, alone in a vehicle thousands of feet from the ground that holds most folks captive. Alone, that is, with no one but God to watch over you! In that moment I fully understood the lines from the famous old flyer's poem I had read many years earlier: