The Barnstormer

When I lived in Virginia back in the late '70s, I fulfilled one of my childhood dreams. I learned to fly. One of my friends was a captain with American Airlines, and he encouraged me to "Go For It". I soloed in 2.5 hours and received my private pilots license in about three months. The plane I learned in can be seen in the photo above. That particular student pilot had been on a cross country solo flight when something went wrong.






I eventually purchased this 1962 Cessna 172 for $6000 and flew regularly between Washington and Ottawa to visit friends and family. That's a 4 to 5 hour trip in a light plane. (Ottawa is the town where I did most of my growing up.)

This particular plane was originally owned by Arthur Godfrey, the television personality. Godfrey Field, the airport in Leesburg Virginia where I took my flying lessons bears his name. You can read about him at this website: (http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/G/htmlG/godfreyarth/godfreyarth.htm)

This Grumman TR2 was owned by a friend who allowed me to use it before I purchased the Cessna. That Grumman was a real hoot to fly, but it was nearly the death of me. Here's what happened.

I had flown to Ottawa to visit my family one weekend. The weather forecast for the return trip to Virginia was marginal, but I decided to take a chance anyway (Big mistake). The weatherman called for low ceilings and rain over Pennsylvania and Virginia. Apart from some turbulence and rain, things were fine until I reached southern Pennsylvania. I was flying just below the cloud cover at about 3000 feet, and I was tense. Concentrating on navigation and fighting the poor visibility, I didn't notice that the ground was gradually rising to meet me. I was flying over heavily forested low mountains when I suddenly realized that I could no longer see the horizon... meaning the terrain a few miles ahead of me had risen to meet the clouds. If I didn't do something quickly, I would soon have to increase altitude to avoid the trees. I would then be in the clouds without an instrument rating, flying blind. Such a situation is usually not survivable.

I needed to find a place to land immediately! Consulting my chart, I saw that there was a small airstrip about 10 miles away to the west. Using radio beacons, I managed to find the airstrip within a few minutes, and got a brief glimpse of it as I flew directly over it. By now, there was only about 100 feet between the bottom of the cloud cover and the tree tops. My only chance was to execute a perfect 360 degree turn to find the strip again, and land. During this maneuver, the airstrip was not visible to me, due to the low altitude, tall trees and lack of visibility due to heavy rain. The fact that I found the landing strip and got the plane down was close to a miracle. It wasn't until after I parked the plane and got it tied down that the gravity of my close call reached my consciousness, and I began to shake. A good friend agreed to drive up from Leesburg Virginia to pick me up and drive me home that evening.

The following weekend, we drove back up to retrieve the plane and fly it to home base. Now, here's where things get really interesting. That plane holds 42 gallons of fuel. When I refueled prior to takeoff, I pumped 41 gallons into the tanks! I had been concentrating so hard on flying, I had neglected to monitor my fuel consumption. That's when I really started to tremble. I had been less than 5 minutes away from crashing into the trees that day! I'll never forget that incident as long as I live. Truly, God had preserved me. If He hadn't forced me to land, I would have crashed within minutes due to lack of fuel.

Thankfuly, most of my flying experiences have been much more uplifting than that. I remember seeing two sunrises on the same morning. I had taken off from Manassas airport 45 minutes before sunrise one day and climbed to 5000 feet to see the sun rise over the Chesapeake. Then I dropped down 3000 feet into darkness, and flew east for a few minutes until once again, the sun rose over the bay. Pretty cool eh?

If you ever get the opportunity to learn to fly - Go For It! Just watch your fuel levels, and you'll be fine.

Cheers,
Rick