Chapter 47

Cindy’s turn:

“Weren’t you here, like, a couple of weeks ago?” That was Barry Rotkopf, the FAA designated flight examiner at the big airport in Mobile.

“Feels like it,” I smiled. “Yet here I am again.”

“Wally warned me. He says if I pass you for your commercial, he’s coming gunning for me. Show me your driver’s license.”

I whipped it out and put it on the desk in front of him.

““Good, Lord, Cindy, you’re eighteen years and ONE DAY old.”

“I didn’t want to dawdle,” I said.

“You’re gonna be the youngest commercial applicant I’ve ever tested. Lemme see your logbook.”

I pushed it across his desk. He flipped rapidly through the first few pages, up to where I got my private license from him a year ago. He slowed down, paying more attention.

“You keep flying the mix, don’t you. Micco. I’ve heard of ‘em. Never saw one.”

“My friends traded their Pitts S-2 for it.”

“You have some interesting friends,” he said.

“I don’t know if they’ll keep it, though. They had a baby. I told ‘em they can always borrow our 180. The community NEEDS the Micco. We need SOMETHING aerobatic.”

He laughed. Kept flipping pages. “Aha!” he said. “Twin rating.”

“Self-defense. The company acquired a Cessna 402C. We can’t have planes I can’t fly...”

“Signed off on a Piper PA-44.”

“Seminole,” I replied. “Flight school had Seminoles. My husband and I went there to get our multi-engine ratings, then came back and got...”

“I see it. Cessna 402C. That’s a lot of plane for you, ain’t it?”

“It’s BIG,” I grinned. “But the controls aren’t bad.”

“Hours...” he said, reading, then “Oh! Lost an engine! And you were PIC (Pilot in command).”

“Yessir,” I said. “My friend Jason, one of our engineers, was in the right seat. He’s a private, single engine. He helped, and we took care of business.”

“What happened?”

“Lost a turbocharger boost controller while we were climbing out. Power dropped. I shut it down and returned to the field. Not a scratch.”

“Very good, Cindy. Very good. Lots of people get the rating but never have to use it for real.”

“That’s what the guy said at the flight school. But I practice, if I can do it without scaring the crap out of my passengers.”

“Good for you. Now, commercial ticket. I assume from Wally’s whining that you’re more than ready.”

“Yessir. More than ready. And I have a path forward. Next on the agenda is my instrument rating. Then I’m thinking CFI-I (Certified Flight Instructor with Instrument flight endorsement) And a multi-engine instructor rating.”

“Good lord, girl,” he blurted. “Don’t you have a PhD?”

“I do,” I smiled. “But it’s in physics, and much of it is theoretical. This gives me something in the real world.”

“Why’d you leave your air transport rating off the list?” he asked with a wry smile.

I know what he was expecting, so I gave it to him. “Because I’m ONLY eighteen and I don’t have the fifteen hundred hours. By the time I’m twenty-three, well, why don’t we cross that bridge then, okay?” I smiled sweetly. Dan says it’s an unfair advantage against males.

“You know, then...”

“Yessir. I looked. That 402 ... Just sort of whets my taste for, I dunno ... something BIGGER. Maybe a charter jet...”

“You’d need the rating for that. And drag along another nutcase, too, because most bizjets require two pilots.”

“I know that, too. My research...”

“I suppose that your company is gonna have a heart attack when you present that. Just fuel alone, you’re talking six or seven hundred bucks an hour for a medium-sized bizjet. Triple that and you get a per-hour cost. You can buy the jet, fly it a hundred hours a year for maybe two or three hundred thousand dollars.”

“I figured somewhere along there.”

“That’s right. Physicist. Numbers play pretty heavy in your business. Now, about this commercial license...”

Two and a half hours later I bounced out of Barry’s office, waving my logbook at Dan. Barry was right behind me, smiling.

“She did it again. Very competent. How do you LIVE with that?”

Dan laughed. “I just hang on. It’s a wild ride.”

I guess it COULD have been a double entendre.

“I’m just a poor little Alabama girl,” I whined.

“Yeah,” Barry snorted. “Business card – Cynthia Richards, MSEE, PhD. Poor little thang...”

“That too,” Dan laughed.

“Now, Cindy ... Wally says ‘Air Tractor’.”

“I’ve been picking at ‘im about it ever since we met.”

“You can handle it.”

I saw Dan’s eyes. “The bigger question is what she CAN’T handle...”

“I suppose that Wally’s been working her out on instrument flight, then...”

“It’s in my logbook,” I said.

“I quit reading after I saw you survived the engine-out thing...”

“Wally’s working me on it. I’ll be ready in a couple of months. I already passed the written exam.”

“Then I’ll see you in a couple of months,” Barry said.

“You will,” I answered. “And if you come visit us on a good weather Saturday or Sunday I’ll get you a ride in that Micco.”

“Wally’s been after me to come see that zoo of his.”

“Please do,” Dan said.

Walking out to our plane I grabbed Dan’s hand and skipped alongside him, at least for a little way.

“You’re still nuts, you know...”

“I still love you, you know,” I said.

We did an abbreviated preflight of the plane, then I let him take the left seat. When I told him to do that, he raised an eyebrow. “Why now?”

I giggled as I walked to the other side of the plane. “I don’t have anything to prove now. I shall rest on my laurels.”

I figured that Wally would be there when we got back. He was.

“Well, redhead,” he said. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”

“Indeed I have, sensei,” I smiled. “I’m ready for Air Tractor 101 now.”

“Cindy...” Dan started.

“Nah, don’t worry, Dan. Seriously. Do you harbor the slightest Idea that she CAN’T?”

“You’ve read the handbook, haven’t you?”

I tapped the side of my head. “It’s in here.”

Wally looked at Dan. “Can you handle the chocks for us? I’m gonna be on the wing. Startup and taxi.”

I actually DID squeal. I’ve been in the cockpit of that big yellow thing before. I’ve even had Wally run me through the start sequence. But never have I moved the throttle past ground idle.

This time, though - “Get the checklist, punkinhead. Read through it. Lemme get yer helmet.”

When he turned around, Dan was holding my white helmet. I’d bought it for Johanna’s Pitts. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Wally.

I put the helmet on. Wally’s voice got louder to make up for the soundproofing. “Start up. Watch the gauges.”

I’m actually nervous. My hands, though ... the checklist is clipped in front of me. Easy-peasy. The three blades in front of me start turning. I watch the exhaust temperature. Ignition! The temperature climbs into the green, the RPM is where it should be, three prop blades are a blur.

“Hold the brakes,” Wally says, then he signals Dan to pull the chocks, freeing us to taxi. He really has to holler to be heard now. “Release the brakes. Easy. End of the runway and back.”

I gingerly allow us to ease forward from the apron onto the runway, push the right pedal hard and toe in a little brake. The nose swings, just like all the other airplanes I’ve flown. Once straight on the runway, I let off the brakes and let the idling engine pull us along at a fast walk. When I reach the end of the runway, we have a wide are for planes to turn around. I use it, this time pivoting to the left, then back up the runway.

“Put ‘er on the apron,” Wally hollers.

I obey. I carry some momentum onto the apron so I can do a 180-degree turn to near the original position, then I brake us to a stop.

“Kill it,” Wally hollers.

I run down the shutdown list. Engine silent, I pull my helmet off.

“I haven’t seen THAT grin since I cut you loose with the 402,” he said. “Dan, come get your wife.”

I jumped off the wing into Dan’s waiting arms. When my feet touched the ground, I did a little jig and squealed.

“I’m having cold sweats,” Wally said.

“You’re NOT,” I squealed.

“Dan,” he said, “let ‘er come back tomorrow. She’s gonna shoot touch and goes.”

Real squeal.

Susan’s turn:

Another work-day, and I don’t know if it was all that smart to kick Alan out of the office. Today, he and Jason are up in “West-by-God Virginia”, digging through more power plant problems. Sometimes they know there’s a problem, but need fresh eyes to sort out the most cost-effective solutions.

Anyway, I just finished nursing JW, and Tina is just about finished with Kathy. Spoiled babies, but neither of us would trade them for their weight in gold. Thank goodness for the Pavilion. It’s not ‘office’ and it’s not quite home. It’s a meeting place and relaxing place.

Cindy and Nikki (waiting for her “baby bump” to appear) were sitting with us, and we were still hashing thru the recent Navajo crash.

Wally walked up, carrying a fresh cup of coffee, and sat down. We’d asked if he could come by.

He said, “Ladies, and Cindy and Nikki, I need to give you an update, and some harsh words.”

Cindy said, “WALLY, what did we do now?”

Wally sort huffed, “It’s not about what you did, it’s about what you might do. You remember the Navajo crash? There’s fresh information out about it, and thinking about it makes me FURIOUS. Ladies, if you never learn anything else, remember that a check-ride does NOT mean you’re qualified to fly an unfamiliar aircraft.”

Nikki said, “What are you talking about, Wally?”

Wally said, “Remember that Navajo crash? You may recall that the pilot lost an engine, and declared an in-flight emergency, stating that he had lost a fuel pump. He was at 12,000 feet, and a few minutes later he said he had lost “the other fuel pump”. Ladies, that aircraft has THREE fuel pumps on each side. What are the odds that all six fuel pumps failed in 8 minutes?”

I know this one. We work with redundant systems and failure modes all the time. I said, “Umm. Something smaller than amoeba shit, I’d say.”

Tina said, “SUSAN! You’re a lady! Watch your mouth -- that is NOT lady-like!” She’s always watching for me to maintain my decorum. Sometimes I slip.

I added, “Neither is killing six people with stupidity. Wally, what are you driving at?”

Wally said, “That pilot was very well trained on multi-engine, and had more hours than any of you ladies. But it turns out that the wings ripped off the fuselage when the bird hit the trees. The fuselage didn’t burn, but the wings did. He was NOT out of fuel, and it’s a safe bet that he was so unfamiliar with the machine that he neglected to change tanks when it was time. He didn’t recognize the problem before it was too late to recover.”