SNAPPY COMEBACK

Not all memorable flights are great long ones. I’ve beaten the towplane down more times than I remember and learned plenty doing so. Statistics don’t count for much in the big picture. What endows a flight with lasting value is the things you learn that you couldn’t learn any other way.Takeoff emergencies provide many a quick tutorial, both in training and 'real' life.  I could write a book.  Another way to draw long legged lessons from short armed flights is to release tow prematurely and plop yourself in more trouble than you thought possible a second earlier. I’m good at that too, but it’s something I try not to pass on to students.  They get there soon enough by themselves.To wit:  Naomi had just passed the check ride and was taking her very first flight as a licensed pilot. After countless short hops in preparation, this time she meant to stay up and celebrate. I hadn’t yet finished logging her takeoff when suddenly she appeared back on the runway, already standing beside the Baby Grob (nosed the opposite direction), and pumping her fist like Kirk Gibson in the World Series, if you know what I meme.Beginners embarrass themselves with short flights more often than the rest of us, we see it every week. But why so triumphant? When I walked out to ask what happened Naomi prefaced her debrief with a war whoop and a running bear hug. Here’s why.They’d launched into the wind over the orchard as usual, then towed further west across Big Rock Wash, a boulder-filled stream bed you could barely walk in. After towing through sink until then, Naomi mistook coming out of it for lift and impulsively released. Should have glanced at the altimeter first.Off tow at not much more than 500 feet, she had nothing. Nothing except a critical need to turn back, two miles through sink, across those boulders and over that orchard, because the only landable anything within reach was the airport. Naomi was hung out bad and knew it.Oh there was a chance of gliding that far. Only last week we’d done a practice abort and doubled our height on downwind leg of an abbreviated pattern (then found all sink on the next one and had to cut in early). Yes, being new to this, she was also freshly trained. She knew to fly no slower than best L/D in a tailwind unless it’s very strong, but what about all this sink?  Going faster in it would shed altitude she could scarcely afford.What she could not afford was to give up and become a victim. Many fine pilots would freeze in a pinch like this, but not Naomi. She had worked as a paramedic in gangland, among other notably demanding occupations, and when IT hit the fan was when Naomi hit her stride.  Panic?  I doubt she knew the word.With nothing to lose, she bet big in the first sinker and pulled up sure enough visibly closer and hardly any lower. Yet waaay short. Having even less to lose in the next one, she tried another zoomie with similar result, this time ending up visibly lower but still a mile shy. Then, what seemed an hour later, one more gruesome patch of sink brought her scary low over rocks, eye level with the trees ahead, but finally put that hideous wash behind. Pulling up onto rising terrain left her so low over the trees she could see weeds on the ground between them.And then the power line before the threshold began to grow. For a moment she thought of squeezing under, but any more sink and she’d never get that far…That’s when she remembered ground effect.   She had seen it demonstrated from the front seat, but not the pull-up needed to clear a 30-foot obstacle. Might she stall and…?  At this point it did’t matter.  No choice, this is IT.Dive to the very treetops and hold it there, faster the better until the wire looms. Pull up only enough and not a smidgeon more, then nose over S A P to regain speed before impact.  A walk-away landing will take care of itself.And it worked, surprise surprise, with energy left over for a contrite taxi to midfield.Hence the war whoop and bear hug, and who knows, perhaps a record of sorts. We’ll claim soaring’s longest celebration after a four-minute flight and challenge the whole world to top it. Anyone who does should have a most informative story!