Did I use up my nine lives? My wife thinks so, and I guess I
do too. After I relate some of my adventures and misadventures, see what you
think. Please note that several of these accounts have been previously
reported.
The first of many really started way before I ever sat in a
plane either as pilot or passenger. As a kid I used to ride my bike to nearby
LaGuardia airport to “watch” the planes land and take-off. I would stand as near the threshold of runway 4 as I could, letting the planes,
DC-4,6 and 3 types as well as Connies get as close to me as possible. That is
until a policeman came up to me one day, and pointed to the large ruts in the
bushes at the threshold area that marked where the landing planes had left their
marks. They were made by the landing gear, and if I had been standing there.
Ouch! After that I stood way off to the side. An early lesson l learned.
It was quite a few years later that I ended up doing the
flying. When still a young inexperienced pilot flying out of Tew-Mac field
north of Boston, I was supposed to be headed towards the Cape area in a Cessna
172 with several of my friends. All was well until I started seeing the
mountains of New Hampshire instead of the flatter terrain south of Boston.
Something wasn’t right. As I was only on a VFR flight I really hadn’t set up my
navigation instruments, or really paid attention to other some things important either.This older plane, not unlike many small planes, did not have a slaved DG
(directional gyro). This is the instrument that gives the pilot the magnetic
heading the plane is on. As part of my pre-take-off check I had not taken the
time to set the runway heading into the DG, and as a result it had been almost
exactly 180 degrees off. So instead of flying south, I was heading north. Therein was the explanation for seeing
mountains instead of the ocean. Luckily I wasn’t in heavy IFR (bad weather)!
The next event, occurred years later also over northern
Massachusetts, but somewhat to the west. I was flying my B-55 Baron( a light
twin engine plane) from Great Barrington (GBR) to Burlington, VT (BTV). Flying VFR(visual
flight rules), I was cruising at 8500 feet, without being in contact with any
particular ATC facility. All of a sudden my windshield was filled with the
image of a single engine plane that shot by me from my 5 o’clock position
towards 10 o’clock. No time to react. The other plane, a Bonanza type had
missed colliding with my plane by very little. Nothing to do but suppress a
scream and wonder whether the other pilot had been asleep or reading a book
while on autopilot. This was before TCAS and other anti-collision systems were
available to help prevent near misses.
Finally I will relate another episode that could easily have
ended with serious consequences. While a second year med student, I was able to
continue to do some flying, working on achieving my instrument and commercial
pilot licenses. One day some of my friends and I decided to that it would be
great to visit Boston. I arranged to rent a Piper Cherokee (140 or 180). The
four of us set off. Weather was VFR back in Syracuse but a bit iffy in the
Boston area. Nevertheless, we departed. Great tailwind, so pilot beware. It
didn’t take too long to reach the Massachusetts border, and all was well. A routine
check of the weather in Boston revealed only some clouds but it was still VFR. However
as we approached the Worcester area, the weather was deteriorating rapidly enough so
that I would have to make an instrument approach in Boston. Wow, how did that
happen? Things can happen fast in the aviation world. As a VFR pilot I wasn’t
prepared to land in bad weather. So, as Boston was I had no option
but to turn around and try to land somewhere to refuel. Remember the great
tailwind? Now it became a whopping headwind, knocking our groundspeed to
probably about 80 to 90 knots. To add to the concern also was that now the
airports such as Albany and even Utica had bad weather, only Syracuse was open
to VFR traffic. Ouch! I leaned the engine as much as possible to stretch our
diminishing fuel supply and crossed my fingers and maybe even prayed a bit. ATC(air traffic control) gave me advice and weather upgrades, but
weren't able to advise me that the weather was legal to land for us until Syracuse. At any
rate, we made it back, but just barely. When we pulled up to the pumps there
couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes of flying time left. That was scary and
a lesson learned for the rest of my flying career. Plan ahead for all contingencies.
Well there it is: my reflection on some events that could
have had severe if not fatal outcomes. Yes, I do believe Lady Luck may have
played a part here. What do you think?
