INTERNATIONAL
HANDS ON FLYING
Tracy Thurman thurmantracyt@gmail.com
Pushing It
No one can outfly the weather and we can’t make the airplane do what it can’t do. That doesn’t stop some of us from trying though.
A 16 | agairupdate.com
Zooming around in the dark in the dimly lit cockpit of a 510 Thrush is about as much fun as anyone should have without being charged for it. Nights when the air is cool and smooth are the payoff for those nights when it isn’t. Now and then, when flying back to the runway, I’ll fly up to a thousand feet or so, just to see the splashes of lights of the small towns around where I get to fly. They remind me of hands-full of old coins and precious stones, gold, silver, rubies, and emeralds, strewn on a deep, black velvet tablecloth. All the humanity going on there, people living out their lives. Some are loving, some are fighting, some are hoping for a better day tomorrow, while others are celebrating the day they had. Meanwhile, we’re all spinning around on this giant spaceship called Earth, circling the sun and watching the moon. We’re just doing what we do. Good, bad, or otherwise. When the wind gets a bur under its saddle, it’s a different story. Flying at night is one thing. Flying in the wind is one thing. Flying in both gets to be way too much like work. The wind on
the field and the wind in the turns are sometimes two totally different things. They can often be different directions and velocities. It’s like dashing across the interstate with an arm load full of groceries. Dodging to the left, until you get halfway, then dodging back to the right. All while trying not to break the eggs or smash the bread. It was such a night I was flying with an old hand in the business. There could have been a tornado ripping across the field and he would have taken it in stride and not wobbled more than two feet off his line. An odd air current tore crossway on the runway just about ten feet above the ground. I was straining on every takeoff and landing with gritted teeth, trying to keep all of the airplane pointed in the same direction at the same time. Turns at the field were an exercise in opposites. Downwind turns were wide and shallow, like an arcing bend on a roller coaster gaining momentum all the way. Get the airplane pointed in the general direction, present the wide part to the wind and hang on as you scoot around the curve. Up wind turns were spritely little hops letting the propeller chew its way in while the
