Round-trip ticket, front cockpit

I had waited for the day since I can’t remember when – looking longingly each year for decades at rows and rows of multi-colored Stearman biplanes on a sea of grass against a late-summer Midwestern prairie sky,  wishing I knew what it was like to ride in one of the World War II-era planes. 

A year ago, after a morning spent, my brand-new bright yellow Stearman Restorers Association flight line pass stuck to my shirt, walking amidst planes at the 40^th Annual Stearman Fly-in and an afternoon watching an airshow which included a spunky woman wing-walker who could hang, suspended upside down by her feet from a soaring biplane as skillfully as she could sing the “Star-Spangled Banner,” my longing seemed only to intensify. 

That fly-in passed, back in the real world, I stumbled across a photo of the wing-walker, the red and yellow biplane, and the pilot who earned her trust for such daring maneuvers. It was a much better image than the one I’d tried to capture with my point-and-shoot camera. (The daring woman was but a blurred dash in mine.) 

An admirer of those who can make a camera capture a moment in time as if it were spread across a canvas, telling a tale as beautifully as a best-selling author, I felt, as I often do, compelled to congratulate the artist, the photographer who captured that image. 

I also shared my seems-like-forever admiration of those magnificent flying machines and let slip my long-time desire, not yet come-to-be, to ride in one of the winged wonders. 

To my surprise, I soon had an invitation from the pilot who had wielded the camera, for a “round-trip ticket – Galesburg to Galesburg” – at this year’s fly-in. 

To no one’s surprise, I accepted the offer.

Last Thursday morning, I used that ticket – and, thanks to the kindness of another pilot, my dad, who trained in Stearman biplanes during World War II, flew in formation in another Stearman. I captured that story in earlier post. In this one, I’ll share what it was like to fly, open-cockpit, wind in my face. 

Dad and I joined our pilot friends as the sun was nearing its peak. Our feet nearly off the ground, we hurried down row four of the field where the planes are parked north and northeast of the hangars at the Galesburg, Illinois airport, and approached our pilots and their planes.

Stearman biplanes have two seats, one per cockpit – one in front of the other. Pilots fly from the rear cockpit. Co-pilots or guests occupy the front cockpit. 

One of my fears through the years has always been, “Oh, yeah, klutz that I am, I’ll probably step in the wrong place when I try to get in the plane.” Fortunately, that didn’t happen. The wing was clearly marked “No Step” beyond the area where pilots and passengers can safely climb. Amazingly, I kept my feet where they belonged.

Getting up on the wing and into the cockpit was a piece of cake. I’m a boater, so I’ve thrown my leg up and over the side of a boat many a time. This wasn’t much different, except that, instead of grabbing ahold of the black wrought iron uprights on the dock, I was placing my hand  in a handle on the wing to brace myself. 

I slid down into the cockpit, careful not to hit the stick, over which was draped the “Snoopy and the Red Baron”-style helmet I’d get to wear. 

My pilot friend gave me a quick course on how the seat belt works, “Do this, then this, grab the strap that’s hanging down in the middle, put it here, snap this over,” and so on. Bottom straps in place, we started again with the top ones. I fumbled. 

“Don’t be nervous. You’ll get it,” the pilot said. 

Nervous? Was I nervous? 

Was I nervous about the flight or again feeling my klutziness taking over? I really didn’t think I was the least bit worried about the flight. 

I put my helmet on and felt a little like Snoopy about to go on a mission atop his doghouse-turned-fighter plane.

“Okay,” my pilot friend said. “Be sure you keep your legs clear of the stick. That’s how I steer. And you won’t want to put your feet on the rudders.” 

The two sturdy-looking metal pedals – one on each side -- looked so far away to me, that I felt the same as I did when I was a kid riding the tractor with my dad. 

“I couldn’t drive (in this case, fly) this thing if I wanted to. The pedals are a million miles away,” I thought.  

But, were they really, or is that just how it seemed to me? 

Looking back, I can’t with certainty remember. 

The pilot said something, I think, about how we’d go down the aisle between planes, across the grass, to the runway. He told me that one of the things about planes like this one was that we couldn’t see in front of us. I answered, “That’s what I’ve heard,” or some such thing.

“Prop clear,” he called. 

“Wow,” I thought. Just like Richard Bach says in all of his aviation books. They really do that!

The engine started, that same sound I’d heard so often from the ground, from my former home a mile from the airport, but louder – the purr of the plane more like a roar so close up.

But, oh how I love that sound, even amplified as it seemed that day.

As we started down the runway, my pilot told me how we’d use an S-motion so we could see the runway. I answered, “Yes, dad told me about that.” 

Then as we approached a turn, he said something about the yellow lines, solid and broken, and what they meant. But even with my headset, I didn’t clearly hear what he said over the sound of the engine.

I nodded as if I did, but if my life had depended on knowing what he said, I’d hope I would have asked him to tell me again. 

It’s amazing how calm I felt as we taxied north on the runway – nothing like the nervousness I’d felt before, riding in a four-seat private aircraft when I was about twenty or a commuter plane a few years later. 

It just felt right – as if I were meant to ride in one of these planes or had in some other dimension. We left the ground so gently I barely knew we were airborne, and the feeling as we passed over my former home was more incredible than I’d imagined. 

Oh, I thought, it looks so little – the neighborhood, the houses. All those years I waved at Stearman pilots, they couldn’t see me. I must have been as a flyspeck on a window, barely visible at all. And as quickly as we were over the neighborhood, we were over the farms my neighbors and I and our children once passed on our bikes, then further we went over trees and fields – corn and beans and pastures, over ponds and creeks, highways and blacktops, gravel roads and dirt lanes. 

I looked down; I looked to the left and the right. I looked back in the mirror at my pilot, trying to capture for posterity the look on his face as he flew – that combination of “this is serious, I have to pay attention,” and “this is so much fun, lucky guy I am” that must cross the face of all who fly these birds. 

I felt the breeze lapping gently against my face.

I watched my dad and his pilot, first at five o’clock, then at seven. I listened to the pilots call out their positions as we flew in formation. I heard the words of other pilots talking over the radio, too. 

I looked down again and thought, “Richard Bach is right, those words he penned in his books. The houses, the cars, the trees -- they do all look like toys.” 

As the planes in formation banked a bit side to side, I may have held a little tighter to the side and I may have checked the strap to make sure I didn’t lose my helmet, but I did not, at any time, think, “Oh no, what if we crash? Eek, what if I fall out?”

What I did feel up there was a feeling of peace, of tranquility, of trust in my pilot and his Stearman, of joy in the experience – and more than a little happiness for people like my pilot friend who’ve made the choices in their lives that led them to this adventure. 

As we descended to 300 feet and circled the airport for our landing, I think I had another feeling too – a twinge of it, at least – perhaps just a bit of regret that my choices hadn’t led me to a similar fate. 

Remember those blocks they made for tricycles when we Baby Boomers were kids – the ones that made the too-far-away pedals closer so you could reach them? 

Do you think they still make them? If I’m going to fly one of those things, I need to reach the rudders, you know. 

At this stage in the game, I don’t think my legs are going to grow any longer. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012  

(Image via)

Head in the clouds

For years, the people who know me know this: I have my head in the clouds. 

Dreamer, I am. 

It keeps me a bit sometimes from fitting in well in their “real” world, but it’s the world where I can imagine what might be, dream, and see some of them come true. 

This is the tale of two pilots, a whole bunch of biplanes, the woman they inspired, and a magical ride over the Prairie State. 

It’s also about a couple more pilots who made a dream come true.

I remember as a little girl, standing next to our Western Illinois farm house and watching an airplane fly slow and low near our home. 

Much later, I learned that during my childhood and well into my teen years, my favorite author, Richard Bach, flew a biplane over many a small town, landed in numerous hayfields across the Midwest. 

As I read his books and learned of his barnstorming days, I always wondered what it would have been like, small impressionable kid, to have had the opportunity to have a plane drop in my field, to see a sign, reading “10-minute ride, $3,” to look down in wide-eyed wonder on the home where I lived – to ride with Richard Bach or another pilot like him.

Growing up, there was another pilot in my life – a World War II vet, home from the war, back on the farm, raising a bunch of kids, aviator wings packed away. His youngsters, among them a freckle-faced girl, knew their dad had flown airplanes, somewhere, sometime a long time ago. 

As time went on and biplanes from that war, Stearman aircraft, began to congregate just a mile from the girl-grown-woman’s home, she learned the open-cockpit wonders were the same planes in which her dad had learned to fly. 

The woman drove for more than 20 years past the Galesburg airport on her way to work each day; she remembered the photo on her grandparents’ wall of that young aviator; she read again and again Richard Bach’s books of aviation and inspiration. 

As time went by, she wondered what it would be like to fly, wind in her face in one of those planes. A little more time passed and she felt a pull, a “gotta-do-this” feeling. Eventually, it became a “can’t-not-do-it” need. 

I am that girl turned woman. 

Last year, I planned to spend a day at Galesburg’s Stearman Fly-in. I sent a couple emails, made phone call or two, and tried to arrange a flight. It wasn’t to be. 

Then, fly-in done, through the wonder called social media, my path crossed that of a Stearman pilot. One thing led to another, and I had an invite to “Come out to the airport next year and I’ll take you up.” 

That year couldn’t fly by fast enough. 

Back to Bach for a minute – he wrote of barnstorming near the Monmouth, Illinois airport in at least one of his books, of taking a young girl and her grandfather over the farm, of the farmer’s wife waving at the duo. 

Bach also wrote in his book “Illusions” of an advanced soul, Donald Shimoda, barnstorming with him – imaginary, perhaps to others, but more real to Bach than most of the flesh-and-blood people he’d encountered in his life.

Over the past few days, as I got more and more excited about my flight, I could tell my dad was itching to fly as badly as I was. When I met my pilot friend at the airport, I told him, “My dad trained in these,” and asked, “Know anyone who would take him up?”

Of course he did!

So yesterday, wind in our faces, wings on his chest, Dad and I flew in formation over a home where I once stood and watched Stearman overhead, to the Monmouth airport where I could imagine Richard and Shimoda flying with passengers – a girl and a man, both with child-hearts and a love of antique biplanes.

The excitement upon taking off, wind in my face, gentle turns and sharper banks, and feeling of tranquility in the air were all I’d hoped they’d be and more. 

And, the feeling of camaraderie with fellow flyers – one who stood beside me when I was a child, pointing up, as excited as I was, saying, “Look, it’s a plane!” – was beyond description. 

It was just as I’d imagined, growing up reading Bach’s books and feeling pride in my heart for my Dad’s service and piloting skills. And better than I’d dreamed, finding two modern-day barnstormer-types so willing to help my dad and me create this special memory.

I did wonder for a minute, though, as we were landing, if we were as characters in one of Bach’s books, Richard and Shimoda flying, a “girl” and a man as passengers, while a woman stood in the tent on the ground, big smile on her face, waving. 

My mom’s ready to fly! 

I’ll be back, Stearman.

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012   

(Image via)

Rain on my parade

Like a small child on the night before Christmas, I climbed into the guest bed at my parents’ home the other evening, tossed and turned, head on the pillow, unable to fall asleep.

The light I turned back on, and button I pushed atop my cellphone to check my email and Facebook, read an article or two online. I did this again and again until the calendar on my phone’s clock was about to turn to the next day. 

Sleep came, finally, not fitfully, but bringing needed rest. But then as day turned to night, or night to day, at some hour unknown in the middle of it all, I heard it, outside my window – the sound of a waterfall rolling down the side of the house, constant, not ceasing. 

I closed my eyes, wishing it away. 

No, not this, I thought. Please rain, don’t dampen my parade. 

This was the morning I was, in my sixth decade of life, to take the ride in an antique biplane for which I’d waited since what seemed like forever.

The tossing and turning started anew, the rain continued. Sounds of a house awakening began – my octogenarian World War II Stearman pilot dad up and about, my mother, too. 

And it was I who said before bed “I’ll be up early. I’ll try to be quiet. Don’t worry about me. I’ll grab coffee when I go to Mickey D’s for wi-fi."

But, that breakfast dose of wi-fi – it was to be an appetizer to a main course, a flight in a WWII-era biplane. 

Now, with that seemingly spoiled, the appetizer had lost its appeal as well. Getting up and getting moving didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t unlike arising on Christmas morning to find a tree under which no presents wait. 

“Wait for my call,” he’d said, my pilot friend, when we talked the night before to plan the flight.

Wait, I did, excited still – wondering if I’d be a character in the story of the little plane that will – or will not – take a rain-gone-past sky adventure. 

That morning the winds came and went, the skies stayed dark. By mid-afternoon, working again, I heard the sounds of Stearman in the air. 

I got a message saying the plane in which I was to ride stood “resting” in a hangar, so I looked forward to yet another excited night, morn of eager anticipation and flight of a lifetime. 

For, no matter how many times one flies – whether this is my first or only biplane ride – the exhilaration and joy of that first ride is a once-in-forever experience. 

Flyer-I-wannabe, I can’t wait to live it. 

Writer-I-am, I can’t wait to put in in words. 

Please come back to read about it, and I’ll come back to tell it.

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012   

(Image via)

Back in the ‘Burg for a bit

One night early this week, I arrived back in what I’ve long called my hometown. 

It feels good.

Born in Galesburg, Illinois, I spent the first fourteen years of my life living on farms in nearby communities, then moved to the ‘Burg for what stretched day-by-day into more than 30 years. 

These days, I make my home on the banks of a big lake in the middle of Missouri. My parents and many other family members still live in Galesburg. 

As I write this, I am sitting in a relative’s home, looking out on a tree-lined street, hearing the sounds of train whistles in the background. 

This morning as I pulled out of my parents’ drive  to go to a local grocery store for luncheon provisions – and caffeine and chocolate to cure my anticipated mid-afternoon slump – I ran into an old friend at the store, a frequent occurrence in the ‘Burg, but infrequent in my new community.  There I may stumble upon new friends, occasionally. Old, not so much. 

It felt right.

As I drove on the street named after my hometown’s native son, Carl Sandburg, two Stearman biplanes, in town for the community’s annual fly-in, crossed overhead. 

Boy, do I love that sight!

Then, turning down one of the major north-south residential thoroughfares, Broad Street, I saw a runner, a pair of women walking and talking, and a couple of bikers.  

Galesburg  is that kind of place. 

Its streets are a welcoming environment for exercise. It does the heart good and I’m not just talking the physical benefits.

From Broad, I turned off on one of the city’s few one-way streets (I still love that about Galesburg – that it doesn’t have many), and traveled it for a couple blocks until I reached the street where we had our first home. It –and the neighborhood – are different, but still the same. I’d still choose that street – maybe even that house – as a place to call home.

I also passed Ronald Reagan’s childhood school, just steps from the home where my parents and I lived when we moved to Galesburg, and smiled as I continued my travels and I saw that a neighborhood corner still held a barber shop. I smiled even more when I saw that the barber whose name is on the building these days is the granddaughter of the man who gave my husband the best cuts he ever had and has cut my dad’s hair for about four decades. 

As I sit here writing, I hear some of the same sounds I hear in my new community – a lawn mower, a dog barking, the purr of a Harley passing by – and there are sounds I don’t hear, such as a duck quacking, geese honking or a jetski flying too fast down the cove. 

I like those sounds, too, and that place, but it sure is nice once in a while to come back here, where my mother still turns down the covers before I go to sleep and my dad makes room in the garage for my car. 

There are lots of reasons I still love my hometown – and those two people rank right up there at the top of the list. 

It feels like home.

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012   

(Image via)