THINGS YOU GET YOURSELF INTO

I was so green! Years before I would hear about the statistical bullseye of a few hundred hours for fledgling pilots becoming reckless, I was dead center in the target.

All morning hardly a thing had happened at the airport, then suddenly a choice. Go home early, do some laundry and spend a gorgeous summer evening watching reruns with roommates – or hop over to New Hampshire and ferry a glider back. Duh.

"But you gotta go NOW," they said, "Time's a waistin'!"

Oh come on I think, it's noon. Franconia's like what, fifty miles? A hundred there and back shouldn't take long... in airplanes. "Say look, I broke my shades this morning and we'll be towing back into the sun. Let me drive the loaner to town for another pair." (My other vehicle was a Schwinn.) The sunglasses in the office junk drawer were like unmatched kaliedascopes, so I got clearance for a dash to the village and back pronto.

My bad angel smirked but said nothing. The good angel just turned away and sighed.

Of course I got a flat tire. And the #&@! jack had no handle. This was way before cellphones, BTW. With no other choice I started hitching, and eventually a ski bum buddy happened by to get me moving again. Then on the way back to the airport I glanced at the fuel guage and realized I might not make it without returning first to the nearest gas station (in my hurry I'd forgotten we were always supposed to squirt some avgas into the loaner before taking it anywhere). But I'd just spent my lunch money on new sunglasses and had less than a couple bucks left so, for neither the first time nor the last I poured my remaining life savings into a gas tank and hoped for the best.

Back at the airport nearly two hours later I was in everybody's dog house, but with now even more reason to hurry we clamoured aboard the Birddog and got underway. Airborne at last, we were thrumming eastbound over miles of rolling canopy forest that I'd peered across but never had the courage to explore in low performance gliders. Now I saw why. I could feel from the Birddog's back seat that thermals there were few and feeble. And not a single clearing to land in anywhere.

Once we arrived, the paperwork took longer than it should and finally even I began to sweat the time. Five o'clock leaves three hours of daylight in midsummer, but this was Sept. twenty something. Then the glider tire needed air – saw that coming, didn't you? Having no chuck for the #&@! air hose surprised me naturally, but everyone else too? What is this, an idjits' convention? The hardware store was closed by then and it seemed I might be in for a long and cashless night in a strange town when someone found the chuck in his pocket. "Coises," grumbled the bad angel, "furled again."

So by sunset we were back in the air, towing straight at the sun and looking hard for oncoming traffic. On the skyline ahead our local mountain stood sillhouetted, perfectly familiar but far smaller than usual. It grew very slowly for the first half hour as the rosy backdrop faded. Then came that awful stretch of seamless hardwoods and my confidence got swallowed by the night. Eventually distant lights began to rise from behind low hills and I moved to low tow for a better view of the tow plane's position lights. From the growing scatter of illumined roads in all directions I could easily see which way was up, but which way was which? If we were where I thought we were the airport should be in sight by now, but all I could see in that direction was a big inky blank. With no one to talk to about this, I started feeling kinda sick. At that point I'd never had reason to loiter around any airport after dark and didn't know the small ones don't leave their lights on all night. While I was staring numbly into that void where the field ought to be, suddenly it flashed into blazing glory. Turns out the tow pilot activated those runway lights remotely by clicking his handheld radio, a technological marvel new to me that I admit was a very welcome surprise! After that came the anticlimax of my first night landing. Nothing much to it, just release a couple miles out and follow the tow plane in (hoping the lights stay lit long enough). Spooky yet easy. Then it was still dark naturally, and time to fumble that cumbersome aircraft over soft summer grass and figure out its new tiedown... before pedaling my other vehicle all the way home and then back the next morning (which was now approaching about as fast as that recent sunset).   Yes, this too really happened. And now that it's over, aerotowing cross-country at night without a radio is one adventure I'm delighted to have right where it is, behind me, not ahead. You get the next one, okay?