||| |—|—| | | | The notes are cryptic; scattered snapshots of a life that would mean very little to anyone except me. Two words-“By myself”-are all that denote the cascade of emotions, experience, fear, excitement and joy that accompanied my first solo in my Cessna 120 taildragger. “Familiarization,” reads another stoic entry explaining 15 minutes’ worth of signed-off flying time that would seem perfectly ordinary and mundane if it weren’t for the brief designation “P-38J”-a World War II fighter plane-in the column describing “type of aircraft.”
“Familiarization.” I laugh, even looking at it now. I remember reaching over my friend Steve’s shoulders to take the controls as we flew the fighter from California to Minnesota that spring day, banking the airplane left and right, giddy with the feel of being in control of a real, honest-to-goodness fighter, even if it was from my crouched perch on the wing. I was on the wing because P-38s don’t have an actual jump seat. The only way to hitch a ride in a Lightning is to strap yourself onto the wing spar that cuts through the cockpit behind the pilot’s seat. The quarters are crowded, and not recommended for anyone much over my 5’4″ height, but my, oh my, the ride is worth it! Sitting on top of the Lightning’s wing, the world stretches out around and beneath you, separated only by the Plexiglas canopy bubble over your head. It’s an E-ticket ride of speed and sight in a changing hemisphere of earth and sky, colors and sounds all rushing by the wingtips at 300 miles an hour or more.
