The Flying Lady

                                        THE FLYING LADY  

A Female’s Lust for Adventure 

My sheer lust for adventure led me one day to our small County airport located on barren land in Northern California with only one landing strip and no tower.  It was here that I started taking flight lessons in a 150hp single engine low-wing Piper.  I sailed through the lessons.  One day after I landed and taxied off the field, my instructor (an old Navy WWII pilot) jumped out of the plane and told me it was all mine!  What a thrill - I was now going to fly all alone, lift off and fly the pattern, do a ‘touch and go’ and come around for a final landing.  

My next test was to do a cross-country trip landing at three designated airports.  After calling for weather advisories, plotting my air routes and cruising altitudes, I filed my flight plan and took off early one morning setting my compass to three-hundred ten degrees heading north over San Francisco to Santa Rosa at a cruising altitude of eighty-five hundred feet, my thoughts suspended towards the horizon, with nothing in sight but rigid bluffs, brown rolling hills everywhere. 

Upon notifying their tower of my approach, instructions were given to land.  I immediately taxied out again and with approval for takeoff, flew on to my next airport at Red Bluff.  After touching down and lifting off at my last designated airport, the flight back took me over my own house and into the downwind approach to our County airport, the round robin taking a little over four hours.  I had successfully flown my cross-country test; the written FAA exam was next.  

My family and I were away in the Sierras skiing when the pilot exam results were mailed to me.  Screaming with delight, my husband and sons, Kevin and Gary looking on in disbelief, we jumped into the hot tub to celebrate, snow flakes falling down upon us.     I now had to make extra sure that I did not hurt myself skiing in order to be fit to fly as soon as we returned home.  Once I had passed the written FAA exam, I could carry passengers.  

Alarming Dilemmas in Flight   

The screws on the top of the throttle were loose and the handle was falling off!  Goodness, my direct final approach to the field at Columbia Airport in the Sierras, with massive evergreens on either side of the runway and my passenger screaming, “Oh, God”, I managed a clean touchdown with only the sharp metal stick to control my descent to the runway.  “That was quite alarming,” I said, as we taxied up to a tie down and commenced to look for a mechanic.  “That wasn’t just alarming; it scared the daylights out of me,” shouted my shaken friend.  “We need a beer,” she cried out.  “Oh, no, if you take to the bottle you can’t touch the throttle.  Rules are not to be broken,” I replied.  “Let’s grab a soda or some coffee and visit the town before we have to fly home.”   

Flying back from Yosemite one afternoon with my son, Brian, the passenger door of the aircraft partially unlatched in midair.  “Don’t worry,” I shouted above the noisy wind, “We’ll be landing soon; it’s still latched sufficiently to get us home.”  What a way to initiate my son into the joys of flying!  I sadly left behind this old 160hp Piper as I advanced to a faster 180hp.

The fog in Northern California creeps in without notice and though a pilot checks weather reports and wind conditions before take-off, this is the type of weather that one cannot always foresee in advance.  Such was the flight I took north to Mendocino along the Pacific Coast shoreline and across the strip of ocean west of the Golden Gate Bridge and its city, San Francisco.  I had flown to Mendocino before, to this beautiful rustic artist’s colony.  This day, however, the trip was different.  Approaching the airport on the downwind leg it became clear that the sweeping fog was about to envelop us.  In a split second, with a very steep bank, landing was secured; the last plane allowed to land that day, unable to fly home for two more days due to the inclement weather.  

A planned one day flight flew us northeast into the Sierras, again spending the night in Mariposa due to a westerly storm moving in from the Pacific.  The next day, deciding to fly back, dropping down into the Central Valley a fog bank awaited.  Not being instrument rated, only VFR, I flew low and followed the railroad tracks to the next town where there was an airport and landed.  No flights were allowed to depart that afternoon so yet another night was spent in another town due to bad weather.  I again checked the weather forecasts, still gloomy with light sprinkles, however seeing clear skies over the low-lying mountains my aircraft was to travel over and around, and checking on the ceiling level, take off was decided and cleared.  Several other pilots were waiting for a better clearance, all of them being male and all flying north instead of my southerly route.  What were their thoughts I wondered, as the only female pilot in sight stepped into the cockpit of her single engine plane. 

Descending into the pattern at my home airport and returning to our rain-slick runway, the field manager was outside to greet me with a smile and said, “Flying kind of low weren’t you?”  Little did he know of my fearless desire to fly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge someday - a plan which if accomplished and noted would surely strip me of my license by the FAA forever.

Joy of Flight 

Many other flights were had as pilot in command or co-pilot in California and Hawaii, all in much sunnier and less crippling weather. 

Another trip was to Calistoga - in the Napa wine country region.  This is a precarious short field and pilots had to be very careful of the sky divers that practiced and landed there as they approached the runway.  If one did not control their rate of descent and landed long there was only a fence to save you.  We enjoyed walking and exploring the mud baths and shops only yards from the airfield.  On one trip, while having lunch at a quaint cafe we asked our waitress where we could rent a car.  She exclaimed, “Oh, you can borrow mine!”  After giving her a grand tip and thanking her profusely off we drove, very carefully, to the nearest winery where gifts of merlot, burgundy and chardonnay were purchased.  The sojourn ended beautifully, with an invigorating mud bath, delicious lunch and a kind waitress to make it happen.  

Slicing through the skies as free as thought I soared through the air many times, up, up into the mirrored blue, what peace aloft in the majesty of space, out of touch with earth within a small world of my own, only the engine’s murmur in the silence of the sky.  Feelings of freedom, power, faith and control so few are able to experience in this realm.  I have been lucky to have slipped the bonds of earth and soared and chased the wind.                                                         

by Poppyseed9