By Budd Davisson, EAA 22483
Floydada, Texas, will live fondly in my memories forever! Not because of some feat of daring do or because of some sort of historical happening. It lives on in my memory because it was located right where it needed to be located to help this old country boy out in a desperate hour of need. At some time or other, that exact same hour of need has happened to every pilot in the universe. All of them!
The occasion was a cross-country flight in a 90-hp Aeronca Champ (7CCM?) while working on a commercial ticket. The year was 1961 (or so) and the exact route and destination have been lost to the years. Floydada, however, stands out in my memory because of the critical, somewhat comical, role it played in an intense emergency.
I had launched out of Oklahoma U.’s Westheimer Field earlier that morning full of piss and vinegar. Literally! I was on top of the world because the 90-hp Champ was the school’s clipper ship. It was incredibly fancy. It had radios and gyros and was even upholstered. After flying the school’s bare bones 7ACs and 7ECs, when you climbed in this one, you felt as if you were saddling up a “real” airplane. 90 hp! Damn! When flying that one, we were really living. It even had wheel pants! And it would cruise at something more than 90 mph!
Anyway, I’m chortling along, my thumb on the sectional following the pencil line while I picked out the grain elevators and train tracks that told me I wasn’t lost. Everything was both hunky and dory. That was until my personal yellow alert alarm started to flicker on. No! I’m nearly an hour from my next fuel stop. I don’t really have to pee! Do I? I can hold it. Right? Please tell me I can.
I don’t have to describe the next half hour. Every soul reading this, pilot or not, knows the exact feeling and the thought process it generates. I can do it! Not a problem. I hope.
Seconds become minutes. Minutes become hours. 90 mph seems to slow to 20 mph. The pencil line on the map seems to get longer with the next airport days away.
Quick, where’s the closest airport? The sectional comes up to eyeball level. Aha! An airport is shown. Off to the right. How far? Who cares! It’s there. Somewhere!
The yellow alert alarm is no longer simply blinking. It has become a searing feeling from deep within. This is getting serious! Every minute and mile drag on. The throttle goes against the stop! The airspeed leaps ahead another two or three mph.
Oh, damn! Now it hurts!
The airport is Floydada and I can see the hangars. But where are the runways? The hangars are facing an expanse of grass with no indications of where an airplane is supposed to land. No marks of any kind. I have maybe 125 hours total time and I’m not mentally equipped to handle this kind of situation!
Where do you land when landing areas aren’t marked?
Circling over the “airport” clearly shows a windsock on top of a relatively big hangar. But no tire tracks or markings say anything about where to land. Screw it! I’m going to come over that hangar and drop it the grass. I’ve landed on grass lots of times. Maybe as many as 10 landings! So, I’m experienced!
The Champ comes over the hangar with 100-foot clearance and the sock shows at least 10 mph on the nose. So, the Champ is moving at a fast walk. Clear of the hangar, the power comes back and the airplane settles onto the mercifully smooth grass. As the speed bleeds off, the door pops open. The zipper comes down while a foot finds the step and, almost as soon as both feet are on the ground, an image is created of a boy standing under his flying machine in the middle of an airport with a look of pure ecstasy on his face. If illegal drugs can create the same out-of-this-world feelings as a long-awaited pee, it’s obvious why addicts become addicts.
Mission accomplished, back in the airplane and the same 10 mph wind that helped it land gets the Champ off in nothing flat. Thankfully smart phones weren’t invented yet or a YouTube video of yours truly whizzing out in front of God and all his friends would still be circulating. ‘Wonder what folks in the FBO office thought.
Its instances like this that makes it sound as if it would make sense for the FAA to do a study of the electrical waves generated by magneto switches. Why? Because, as every pilot will agree, for some unknown reason, the instant the mag switch hits “Start,” and the prop begins turning, our bladder sends out an unpleasant signal of its own.
Aviation has two P-factors, and both require constant vigilance. That’s the CFI word of the day!
Budd Davisson, EAA 22483, is an aeronautical engineer, has flown more than 300 different types, and has published four books and more than 4,000 articles. He is also a flight instructor primarily in Pitts/tailwheel aircraft. Visit him on AirBum.com and his new blog, Thinking Out Loud.