And now for something completely different. Some aviation fiction. Jeff 'Magnum' Acord is a retired FAA controller, active corporate jet pilot, and an aviation world record holder many times over. His aviation roots go way back. His grandfather, known to everyone as 'CT' was one of the first pilots to graduate from the new (in 1917) flying school at Kelly Field.
Heavy sigh. Here we go again. Beacon on, engine start, taxi clearance, checklist, line up, takeoff, gear up, flaps up, contact departure. I reach for the com switch and think, "When did flying become a chore?" Too busy now, think about it later.
Touchdown at some obscure airport in the desert southwest. I watch the pax go off in their limo and the captain walk into the FBO to pay the fees. I then realize that the field was suddenly fogged in. I mean damn near WOXOF.
I hear whistling coming from a nearby hangar, I walk over and step into a typical hangar with all the trappings of tools, airplane parts, paint, etc., except for an old Link trainer in the corner that I would swear was making a humming sound. Bent over a workbench tinkering on some project is an old geezer in white coveralls, whistling.
He stops looks at me and says "Ah've been waitin' for ya".
"Me?" I say.
"Ya, Jeff, you" he replies.
There was something strangely familiar about this guy. "Have we met before?" I said. He just smiled and said "Ya need to get the flyin' back, son. Get in the Link and strap in".
Feeling like this was a dream, I get in the Link.
He leans in, flips a switch and says, "Don't forget to look the window". Before I can question this...
SNAP
A bright spring day and I have a stick in my hand and the biplane and I are rolling down a perfect grass field. I FEEL the airplane and a gentle back pressure we are in the wind. I smell new mowed grass, hot oil, exhaust, clean Midwest air. The biplane and I turned crosswind and there is the old water tower with Joplin on the side. We roll and loop and stall and slip and skid and laugh and fly. I then realize that my front passenger is the mechanic, looking back at me with much younger face, hair tousled in the wind, sporting a huge grin. Touchdown is a whisper of grass, a perfect three pointer.
SNAP
The biggest, tallest, meanest, most beautiful looking squall line I have ever seen is filling the windshield of our DC3. The sky is a palette of blues, purples, yellows, oranges and white tumbling around in a maelstrom that is about to swallow us up. Belts tight, pax briefed (and scared), last drag on the cigarette and we go in. Throttles up, props forward and our world is turned into violent up and down and flashes of lightning and thousands of jackhammers on the skin of the airplane.
"Needle, ball and airspeed, Jeff" says the copilot.
I look to my right and there he is again. All complete with the wrinkles of a million miles flown on his face and a name tag that only reads "CT"... Gripping the yoke I do battle with the clouds. I FEEL the airplane and together we fight. I smell the sweat, the stale cigarette smoke, the ozone, the fear. And as suddenly as it started, it stops. We are bathed in warm smooth clear air and the runway is dead ahead. The rotating beacon is a friendly "welcome home". Gear down, flaps down, and a barely perceptible chirp from the mains as we make a perfect wheel landing. A round of applause from the pax.
SNAP
Accelerating down the runway, afterburner on, I only hear my breathing in the helmet. Power 103%, instruments in the green, 120 knots and I FEEL the side stick coming back and I am in the sky. Straight up and...roll. 1, 2, 3, 4 and...1/2, pull back and inverted; I look up at the airport. Roll level and I pass Mach 1 crossing the shoreline. RADAR lock on the aggressor and so begins a twisting rolling straining 9G dance in the air. A dance I will win, I must win, for I must be ready to fight for real. My world is clear blue sky, clear blue ocean, radio chatter and my grunting when the G-suit squeezes me.
Suddenly that now very familiar voice crackles on the radio "Magnum-BREAK RIGHT- HIGH YO YO LEFT!"
The aggressor is now right in front of me...missle lock...good tone...FOX1! Splash one aggressor.
Now there is the spot on the water that is the carrier. Gear down, flaps down, hook down, steady...steady. Call the ball. Fly the AoA. The burble of air from the island and then a perfect three wire. Full power and the airplane and I are stopped. Taxi to the tie down, canopy open and I am in the fresh salt air and sea breeze.
SNAP
I am back in the hangar in the Link. I am stunned. I am trembling. I look at my hands and I can still FEEL the stick in the biplane, the yoke of the DC3, and the trigger through the NOMEX gloves. I smile. I just flew, by God, I really FLEW!
The old mechanic is standing there in his white coveralls and I notice "CT" is embroidered on his left breast.
"Ah told ya, Jeff, ya just needed to get the flyin back" he says with that grin.
"What just happened?" I ask.
He replies in a strange echoing voice, "Flying is our gift to you. All of us that came before you, are with you each and every time you get into an aircraft. Go and enjoy."
I have to ask him: "You look very familiar. Have we met before?" He just smiles, returns to his project and starts whistling again. It is time for me to leave.
I walk from the hangar still trembling and trying to wrap my mind around what just happened, when I realize that the sky is as clear as it can be. It felt like I was in there at least 4-5 hours. This can't be real.
I see the captain walking back from the office and I stop him and say "Don, how long were you in there just now?"
He looks at me rather puzzled and replies, "I dunno 5 or 10 minutes, why? Jeff are you all right?" I say "Oh man, you gotta come see this!"
We walk back to the hangar and find it deserted, dusty and nothing in there but some trash on the floor.
"Can I help you guys?" We turn and standing there is a rather old security guard.
I ask, "Hey, where is the old mechanic, 'CT' and that Link trainer?"
He looks at me with the same puzzled look as Don and says, "Don't know anybody by that name, and this is how this hangar has been for the last 30 odd years ever since the owner left. Weird story. The owner was this old geezer named Tookie who flew along time ago. He walks into the FBO September 21st, 1974 and says, 'He's joined us'. Before anyone can reply he turn, walks out the door and disappears. Nobody has seen or heard from him since. Funny thing though, when they unlocked his hangar, and looked in, it was empty, just like it is now. Why do you ask?"
There is an unmistakable shiver down my spine. "No reason" I say, "I must have been mistaken."
I couldn't bring myself to talk about this on the flight back. I just FELT the airplane all the way to landing. I flew. When I got home I told Connie about it and that I was sure it was a daydream.
She said "Are you sure it was a dream?"
"I don't really know. I just have this feeling that I met that guy somewhere before. I can't explain what happened in the hangar. I do know that I really did enjoy flying back home."
I went to open my logbook and record another block of time on another page and for some strange reason my book fell open to the back where the endorsements are located. There, plain as day, was an entry that looked as though it had been written a long, long time ago.
It simply said: "Basic flight, advanced instruments, ACM. Don't forget to look out the window, Jeff."
It was signed: "Clarence Tooker"...my grandfather.
It was dated: August 5th, 1935...the day he died.
I then remembered that I soloed on September 21st, 1974. Tears of joy began streaming down my face.
-- Jeff Acord
• CT
• Genetics and Bureaucracy
The first Navy aircraft I flew in were older than I was, vintage Beechcraft UC-45J Bugsmashers. Piloted by recent fighter and attack jocks with a chip on their shoulder because of their assignment to a menial training job, it wasn't the most fun flying I'd ever done. Sir! No Sir! But it did put wings of gold on my chest, and a bunch of interesting experiences in my log book.
It all started when I was flunking out of college. Even though I was studying my ass off every day (and half the night) nothing seemed to be working, so I decided in desperation to try something different. Driving from the dorm out to the little local grass strip in a friends car I hoped that whatever I had to do to learn to fly would somehow lead to better grades or at least a non-college-graduate career. And, lo, by the time I'd earned my private pilot's certificate my name had actually appeared on the Dean's List (once, by the skin of my teeth), and I was close to graduation.
As college days came to an end in 1969 the war in Vietnam was going on hot and heavy, and the draft loomed in the future. While the call-up was based on a lottery I've always mistrusted the adage, "you can't win if you don't play," and favored the one that admitted, "your chances of winning are essentially the same if you play or not."
Self-determination rather than luck seemed a better course. The idea of slogging through a hot jungle where people try to kill you wasn't appealing. So thanks very distinctly to the inspirational even patriotic (but not very cautionary) Victory At Sea television series, I applied for Navy flight training.
Assured by the recruiter that I'd be sent to flight school after going to regular navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, I signed on the dotted line. Finding myself in an office in the Philippines six months later, not a cockpit in Pensacola, I was sadder but wiser. But less than a year later the Admiral I worked for wrote to a buddy who just happened to be CINATRA (Chief of Naval Air Training), and before long I was where I wanted to be, young wife and infant daughter in tow.
My eyes didn't meet the pilot standard so Naval Flight Officer (bombardier/navigator or radar intercept officer) training was my destiny even though I had a pilot's license in my pocket. I've never been happy about that convergence of genetics and bureaucracy, but it did mean I could Fly Navy, and that was better than driving a ship or sleeping in a foxhole any day.
Scheduled for an 3 hour cross-country radio navigation hop, I reported to the flight line with a bit of a head cold and a little stuffed up. Eager to fly and even more eager not to show any weaknesses, I ignored my sniffles. But not for long.
Climbing out of 2000 feet to our initial enroute altitude of 7500' my right ear felt like someone was trying to drive an ice pick in it with a hammer. I suffered for a couple of minutes, and scribbled a note to the pilot I had a medical problem and we need to get down now!
He gave me a puzzled look, I pointed at my ears. He held his nose and did a 'blow' demonstration. I gave him a thumbs down sign, the cut sign across my throat for "this has gotta stop," and pointed emphatically at the ground.
A former Douglas AD 'Spad' driver he got me down. Oh baby did he get me down. Chopping the throttles, he dumped the gear and flaps and did a split-S. I have a very clear image of looking out the windshield from a seat in the rear cabin and seeing green/brown Florida dirt up and blue/white sky down. Hard to tell what it did to the poor old engines and 100 knot Vfe flaps, but it sure fixed my ears.
I gave him a thumbs up and he passed a note back, "OK low? Continue?" I nodded yes, and enjoyed my first low level, really low level, navigation lesson. But that's another story.
Moral? Don't ignore the little things. Eager to excel, I didn't want a mere head cold to thwart a studly Navy flyer on a mission. Your sub-conscious can't talk, but it can whisper to you. Your body certainly can talk, and it'll yell if you don't listen up!
Blue skies and tailwinds,
Tailspin
