Third Time Is a Charm

by Ed Nelson

  “Rick, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone else. However, you have the knowledge and maturity to pull it off. There is probably room for more mathematics, but you can pick that up as needed.

  As far as the social aspects, I can’t see you fitting in with any of your age group. That is meant in the best manner possible. Most of them should be put in a barrel and fed through the bung hole until they are twenty-one.”

  Now that was a visual.

  The afternoon had fled, so I headed home for dinner. I just barely had time to clean up and change into a sport coat and tie. Of course as I was going down the steps two at a time I noticed that I had a mustard stain on my blue tie, so it was a quick trip to change to a regimental stripe. Which regiment I had no idea.

  At dinner we caught each other up on our days. It was a happy conversation all around with some silliness mixed in. My biggest news was taking my multi-engine flight exam tomorrow, oh yeah I had a patent being filed on a beer can with the opener built in. This led to further conversation about where I could get someone to build me a prototype.

  Dad thought he knew of a machine shop which might be able to do it. We made plans to check them out next week.

  After dinner Mum, Dad, and I adjourned to a small sitting room. We didn’t use it very often, I don’t know why, it was done up as a man’s room, all in leather, wood paneling, with pictures of English hunting scenes. Tea was served for Mum, while Dad and I had coffee.

  We had a serious discussion about flying to England and taking the O-Level and possibly A-Level examinations. They were supportive. It would take a while to arrange as we had no idea how to go about it. Mum thought I should call Mr. John Norman head of the Queens Messengers who probably could find out what needed to be done.

  This made sense to me as I hadn’t any contact with him since I was last in England. This would renew the relationship. We all agreed that I probably should wait until the end of the first week of the New Year. This would let him settle back in after the end of the year festivities.

  About this time the phone rang. It was for me, it was a very distraught Judy King. It seems the paparazzi had been making her life miserable. I hadn’t taken this into account. I lived behind a wall and had security, so never had many concerns. It was only when I was in a large public event they found me.

  They had gone to Judy’s house and had taken pictures through her bedroom window. One of the national rags had printed them. They weren’t that salacious, but the idea of the whole world seeing her in baby doll pajamas freaked her out.

  I thought privately that I had to buy a copy. I was not dumb enough to say that to anyone.

  I tried to reassure her, but it didn’t seem to help. After a while her father got on the line. He wasn’t upset with me, but you could tell he didn’t care for the situation. He was having a fence erected around their property and no trespassing signs put up.

  The bottom line was that it was affecting the whole King family and they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t want to over react, but at the same time this was a shock to them.

  The call ended on an inconclusive note. It knocked my good mood in the head. I explained it all to my parents. They had no ideas of what to do. We as a family had the same issues. The only difference was we had walls, guards, and limousines.

  On that note I retired to my room for the evening. I tried to read some fiction, but it held no interest. Instead I reviewed my multi-engine text books.

  Chapter 52

  I was awake early for my big day. Unlike my first training flights I felt confident and was looking forward to it. My morning workout and run flew by. After cleaning up and dressing in my tan chinos and a yellow polo shirt I went down for breakfast. I kept it to a moderate breakfast of French toast. I went light on the coffee as I didn’t want to be jittery or have to pee bad during the check flight.

  Now this is usually where the wheels flew off my plans. Something would come up to turn an ordinary event into something that would make the news. Today it didn’t. I arrived on time and got the written portion out of the way. As we walked out to the aircraft I noticed the butterflies in my stomach.

  My check ride examiner obviously didn’t know me from Adam or didn’t care, which was fine by me. I performed the aircraft walk round completely and carefully. There were no surprises. All was in order. My examiner asked casual questions about the aircraft as we walked around. This was the beginning of the oral questions.

  I taxied out and performed a compass check. I made no smart remarks to the tower as I followed radio procedure to the letter. The butterflies disappeared as I fell into the routine I had been taught.

  When I filed my flight plan earlier my examiner had provided a course he wanted me to fly so without any further instruction from him I followed the plan. When we arrived at the designated area and had clear turns and were 3000AGL my examiner asked me to perform some maneuvers.

  It started easy with steep turns. Power was 20” at 2400 rpm, followed by a 50 degree bank. I managed it at 53 degrees which was within the plus or minus five degrees allowed. Next he had me perform a right turn of 360 degrees then a left turn of 360.

  Next was slow flight. Power was set back to 15. I put the gear down as requested at 150 mph. When down to 130 mph flaps were lowered. I put the mixture/prop forward. Power was brought up to 19 to maintain altitude. My airspeed was reduced to 90 mph. During all this I had to pay attention to pitch controls, airspeed, the power controls and altitude.

  This sounds like a lot, but I had over fifty hours practicing all this, when only three hours were required.

  Then there was slow flight recovery using full power, pitch up climbing the blue line. I also remembered to clean up the aircraft configuration by raising the flaps and landing gear.

  After that it got more interesting as I had to perform a power off stall. I set power at 15, put the gear down as the aircraft slowed to 150 mph, then flaps at 130 mph. At 110 mph I set the mixture/prop forward. Next was setting power to idle at 90 mph while maintaining altitude into the stall.

  I internally chanted Pitch-Power-Drag-Climb. While chanting this I pitched the nose just below the horizon, then went to full power. As the engines revved up I reduced drag by raising the flaps then the landing gear. I heaved a sigh of relief as I climbed the blue line.

  The examiner snorted as I sighed.

  He told me, “I always tighten up a bit when this starts. At least until I see I won’t have to take control. You are doing fine.”

  Hearing this took pressure off my chest. I didn’t realize how stressed out I was getting. It was nice to know the examiner wasn’t out to get me. He had a job to do and was doing it. It was also in his best interest not to have me crash the plane.

  “Okay now it will be a power on, stall and recovery.”

  I set power at 15” and 75% power. This is what we had been taught and without any further instructions I was going with what I knew.

  At 110 mph I set mixture/prop forward while keeping the nose just above the horizon. As soon as the stall started I went through my mantra of Pitch-Power-Drag-Climb. All went smoothly.

  I then went through the Vmc demonstration showing that I could power up smoothly (I thought I had been doing that all along). I had to set the prop throttle to full doing it smoothly. I had to guard the rudder until there was imminent loss of directional control. Power was idled on the good. I set pitch to the blue line, next adding power smoothly at the blue line. I also had to maintain airspeed and directional control on a single engine.

  I didn’t have to do a drag demo as that was for a Multi-engine Instructor only. I had been shown what to do but since I wasn’t asked I wasn’t going to volunteer.

  The last air maneuver I had was an emergency descent. I was told the port engine was on fire. Now I thought Chop-Drop-Prop, as I set the power to idle, dropped landing gear down, put the prop to full forward. I set the pitch for 150 mph and banked away from the burning engine at 30 degrees.

  I was
directed to return to the airport. I was prepared for the last instruction as we turned onto the taxi way. I heard, “Abort, Abort, Abort.” That startled me even though I was expecting it. I immediately set power to idle. I then glanced at the examiner. He rotated his finger to indicate that I fire it back up.

  As I returned to aircraft to the hanger apron my examiner commented that I had good directional control on the runway. I brought the aircraft to a complete smooth stop. After powering down and making certain that no bits had fallen off in flight I made an entry in my logbook.

  With a pleasant smile my examiner countersigned my book, shook my hand and congratulated me on a fine check ride.

  “I see that Bill McGarry was your initial flight instructor. I’m glad you didn’t try to strafe the runway.”

  “Well it seemed a waste of time since the aircraft isn’t armed.”

  He chuckled and walked away.

  What’s with Mr. McGarry and strafing runways?

  Just like that I had completed a major goal without any drama.

  Hank Smith was waiting for me. They had prepared a nice framed certificate from their school. I was then escorted to the office of their owner. The office had all the decorations you would expect in such an office, his I love me wall, a wooden propeller, and in pride of place centered on the largest wall there was a framed piece of old canvas from an early aircraft. The canvas had a hand painted picture of an opened mouth, Chief Sitting Bull.

  The owner Mr. Larson a tall lanky guy, made a request that surprised me though it shouldn’t have. He wanted to use me in their advertising.

  In return he offered a refund of all my fees plus the instrument rating on multi-engines. All I would have to do was pose for some pictures. I would be allowed to approve the wording in the ad. I didn’t see anything wrong with any of this so told him yes I would love to do it for him. I was rich, but this was easy money.

  That reminded me. With Mr. Baxter retiring I needed a new agent. Mr. Larsen told me they would draw up a contract for my review. It would be ready the day after Christmas. He was in a hurry as he wanted to put out the ads as early as possible in January, as many pilots made New Year resolutions to obtain or upgrade their certifications.

  I told him that if that was the case we should try to get the photo shoot in the last week of the year as I was heading to England for a while. I then asked him who his photographer was. He didn’t have one. I suggested Sam Nielsen’s studio. I pointed it out to him in the yellow pages. He told me he would call them.

  In fairness I told him my brother was employed at the studio and might catch the assignment. After that I flew home, well it seemed like I was flying I was so high from passing my check ride.

  When I went down for lunch Mum and Dad were at the table. I stopped at the doorway in mild surprise at this unusual occurrence. With their busy schedules someone was always out and about.

  I was bursting to share my good news so I just blurted it out.

  “I passed my check ride!”

  “That’s great Rick.”

  Mum stood up and gave me a hug. I almost shied away from this unusual display of affection from my English mother. Almost was the key word. This was praise as high as it could get for me.

  Dad shook my hand while giving me a half hug. My smile must have been a mile wide. Well at least as much as my mouth could open. Sort of like the Chuckle Lion in Dad’s story.

  With my hands swooping up, down, and around I gave a play by play of the examination. I must have babbled a little as Dad told me to slow down. This did bring me down to earth. Well at least to ten thousand feet where I could breathe again.

  Mum enthusiastically asked if I could now fly them around. Sadly the answer was, “No, I can’t do that until I’m seventeen.”

  That didn’t change my mood. I would be able to fly my new airplane as soon as it was delivered. That thought reminded me that I should call and see if by any chance the delivery date could be moved up.

  We chatted as we ate our mac and cheese about how things were working out. That in turn generated another subject. I had left early enough this morning that I hadn’t seen the papers.

  The headlines on the local page of the LA Times read, “Jackson talks his way out of tenth grade.”

  That didn’t sound friendly to me, but as you got into the text of the story it was well done. They gave both sides of the issue from the organizations points of view. I was depicted as being caught in the middle.

  I had another big grin on my face as I read about the oral examinations and how I handled them. They skimped a little about how the school board had tried to stack the questions from the standard textbooks to the suggested reading.

  The story did spell out in more detail than usual my answer to the physics of flight. They used that to illustrate how Judge Thornton being a pilot was able to bring that knowledge to bear when the school board had misinformation.

  I didn’t know ignorance was misinformation, but wasn’t going to quibble.

  His comment about Mr. McGarry and strafing the runway led to a sidebar story about Bill McGarry being one of the Flying Tigers. He had been interviewed about why he taught his students to shoot up the aircraft on the ground.

  “Well it is more interesting than doing another touch and go. Those things can get boring, especially if you don’t have holes in the rudder, your landing gear is locked down and no smoke coming out of the engine. I try to liven it up for them. Besides you never know when you will have to go to war again.”

  The articles tone made me think of dinosaurs. Apparently the reporter didn’t think we would ever have to fight an air war again. I hope he was right.

  Mum had already informed Susan Wallace that I would be doing no interviews on the whole tenth grade issue. My back went up a little when she told me that. It was my life and career. Luckily I came to my senses before I opened my mouth.

  First I didn’t want another round of interviews, second the issue was so complicated I would probably put my foot in my mouth; then shoot myself in the foot. Best left alone.

  “Thank you Mum.”

  “You’re welcome Rick, now you had better change, the first guests will be arriving at any time.”

  From my blank look she stood up walked behind me at the table and slapped me in the back of the head.

  “Christmas reception, lots of company coming. Many of whom you had put on the guest list? Ring any Silver Bells?”

  Yikes, I had totally forgotten the Christmas Reception! Rather than trying to fake my way around it, I hurriedly went to my room. It was not deserting the battlefield it was a strategic retreat.

  A quick hot shower, followed by blowing my hair dry with the latest version of my hairdryer had me decent looking, well clean looking. Putting on my blue pin striped suit made me decent. I really liked my Christmas tie with the little Santa in his sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer. Must have not been any fog as Rudolph wasn’t there.

  The Reception had two parts, a drop in from 2:00 to 4:00 then an evening dinner starting at 5:00. Mum had fretted about what would happen at 4:00. Some of the dinner guests would be there and would expect to stay.

  Some who hadn’t been invited to the dinner would hang around. She didn’t want to tell them to leave, but had no way of seating everyone for dinner, and didn’t want to upset people who left on time and then heard about it later.

  Dad suggested that we tell the dinner invitees to discretely adjourn to the tower where cocktails would be provided. I was one of those detailed to pass the word at the reception.

  The hope was that at 4:00 the only people left in the ballroom would be those invited for the afternoon. One could hope they would have the common sense to leave. This was to be encouraged by the staff starting to clean up.

  The last choice was for Mum to announce she had another event that she had to get ready for. She would not say it was dinner here, and that they weren’t invited.

  Man, these things can get complicated, and if not handl
ed right feelings could be hurt. Since there would be some reporters invited as guests it was Dad’s job to let them know this was a private event and there would be no stories.

  Chapter 53

  I was on hand to greet guests, especially those I had invited. The lobby was festive with a large Christmas tree, a blue spruce I had been told. It had white flocking to simulate snow. The white lights were like candles and they twinkled. The color on the tree was provided by many silver, gold, blue, green, and red ornaments. The tree was topped by a shining star.

  Garlands ran up the grand stair case. On the ground floor opposite the elevator were several tables loaded with fruit baskets. These were to be handed out by the elves as people left.

  Yeah we had elves, by the name of Denny, Eddie, and Mary. You can guess which one loved her role, the others not so much. They had professional green elf costumes rented for the occasion. There were even extensions for their ears. I thought the curly toe shoes with bells on the end were a bit much.

  Their duty would be to help with hats and coats and then hand out the baskets. Since there were several hundred people expected there were many more baskets in a room just off the hallway.

  Dad had spent most of the afternoon yesterday delivering baskets to the local police and sheriff’s offices, plus our fire station and sanitation department. When I asked Dad about it he told me he thought Mum had read one too many books on how the rich did it in the nineteenth century.

  Actually it seemed like a nice thing to do. It’s not as though we couldn’t afford it.

  The first two people on my list to arrive were the tall straight arrow looking Mr. Bell, my archery instructor, yes the pun was intended. It was especially neat that he was accompanied by the built like a tank Mr. Pearson, retired marine and unarmed combat instructor.

  I led them into the ballroom which again was a winter wonderland. This time the Christmas tree had an old English theme. The ornaments were decorated with fox hunting scenes, the union jack, and red telephone boxes with the royal crown on its top.