Sojourners of the Sky (36 page)

“Did Grandpa teach you how to operate the VOR?”

“No. Did he show you?”

“No, but I’ve read about it,” said Jack, while fiddling with the aging piece of equipment. “You tune in the radio and then twist this knob until the needle on the gauge centers. Then, as far as I know, you just fly the heading under the little arrow.”

“You know, Jack, I don’t think that ancient thing even works anymore.”

Jack didn’t respond. He briefly glanced at his older sister as he monkeyed with the prehistoric-looking device, hoping to resuscitate it back to life.

“Forget about it, Jack,” she said. “I figure when we get over the Tunkhannock Airport we can follow the Susquehanna River to the south. Then when we get past Bloomsburg, where the river splits, we’ll turn north and stay over the river for as long as we can.”

“What about the clouds?”

“I’m hoping we can stay below them.”

“I have my doubts, Lucy.”

They knew how to find the Tunkhannock Airport. Their grandfather had them fly there a few times to practice emergency procedures while flying high above the old grass strip. He would wait until they were over the airport and then reduce the engine power to idle, telling them to pretend it was a real engine failure. They would then glide down to the runway, managing their speed and distance from the field, until they were within a few feet of touchdown. Then, when it looked like a safe landing was in the bag, he would order them to add power and go around.

One reason their instructor liked the old airport so much was because there was a drive-in movie theatre located on the north side of the field, one that both cars and airplanes could use. When he first bought ‘626, Bill and Lynn often flew in on a Saturday night and relaxed on a blanket underneath the Cessna’s wing while watching a movie. It was an experience he loved pointing out to his grandkids.

Beyond their ability to locate the Tunkhannock Airport, however, both Lucy and Jack knew they would need a great deal of luck to make it all the way to their destination, hundreds of miles to the west.

“Lucy, I think you’d better level off. If we go any higher we’re gonna end up in the clouds,” said Jack.

“I know, Jack. But it’s not safe to fly this low. We could hit a radio tower or something,” cited Lucy.

The Cessna 150 was skimming the bases of the dark gray clouds. Their altimeter indicated fifteen hundred feet, but the young aviators knew that they would need to climb much higher if they wanted to safely traverse the mountains of central Pennsylvania.

Both were thinking the same thing: The safest thing to do was to turn around and go back. And as tempting as that may have been, neither wanted to return. As far as they were concerned, all that was behind them was a lifetime of unhappiness.

The air started getting bumpy, and before they knew it the Cessna plowed smack-dab into the lower wisps of the murk. They were in the clouds with no way of knowing which way was up or down! Lucy instinctively looked down at the gauges, mainly because there was no longer anything to see outside. Unfortunately, she’d never been trained to fly solely by instruments. Thus far, all of her training consisted of looking outside at the horizon. “Seat of the pants” was how her grandfather described it.

“Lucy, push the nose down, now!” exclaimed Jack.

“I can’t. I’m not sure where the ground is,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the fear she felt inside.

A few seconds later, they caught a brief glimpse of the green Earth below. Lucy pushed the nose down, but the Cessna hit a gust and the tiny two-seater pitched up. Suddenly, the only world the two young pilots had ever known was gone. They instantly found themselves enveloped in a strange, dark, unforgiving world. Light rain pelted the windshield while turbulence, the enemy of all pilots, descended upon them with a vengeance. Lucy looked at her artificial horizon trying frantically to interpret what it was telling her. But it was too late. The instrument panel had become a confusing blur! Nothing looked familiar. The young student pilot was confused and totally disoriented! It took everything Lucy had inside to fight back against the terror that was struggling to defeat her.

“What should I do, Jack? I’m not sure where the horizon is!”

“I don’t know, Lucy, but we have to, uh, I don’t know.” He grabbed the controls in front of him, hoping to somehow help.

All of a sudden, the airplane began to bounce up and down like a bucking bronco. Jack, in a panic, released his grip on the yoke, allowing his sister to have full control.

The increasing turbulence abruptly knocked the Cessna onto its side and Lucy did her best to fight it. It was a valiant effort on the young woman’s part. But eventually, unsure of what to do and unaware of where the sky ended and the ground began, she herself decided to let go of the controls.

The young pilot had unwittingly placed their fate in the hands of Mother Nature. And, as any aviator worth his salt knows, a pilot should never do that.

Thirty Eight

H
aving lived for many years a mere mile from the approach end of runway one-nine at the Schultzville Airport, both Bill and Lynn Pratt assumed the airplane they’d heard earlier that morning was of no consequence. Thirty minutes later, the aging couple was sitting at a small wooden table in their kitchen enjoying a quiet breakfast.

“Thanks for getting up to answer the phone this morning,” said Bill.

“Uh-huh,” replied Lynn.

“Were you able to fall back to sleep?”

“Yes, for a little while,” she answered faintly.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bill, suddenly clued-in that something was bugging his wife. “Who was on the phone?”

“Kathy.”

“What did she want?”

“She and Peter are driving up from New York. I imagine they’ll be here soon,” said Lynn in a somber tone.

“What? Why? They’re not taking the kids back today, are they?” asked Bill, with both angst and apprehension clearly evident in his voice. He placed his cup of coffee on the table with a thud and stared at his wife with tears welling up in his eyes.

“She didn’t say that, but I’m guessing that’s why they’re coming.”

“The two of them haven’t…Why, they haven’t even so much as called all summer long. Those two don’t deserve those kids! We ought to sue them for custody!” said Bill, with far more emotion than Lynn expected.

“William, can you hear yourself?”

“Lynn, I feel like I’m fifty again. Those children have brought me back to life. I don’t want to lose them, especially to a couple of city-slickers that don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground.”

“Watch it, that’s my daughter you’re talking about!” stated Lynn.

“You know what I mean, honey. I can’t bear to think what they might be planning to put those kids through.” Then, after a long pause he asked, “Did she say anything about them splitting up?”

“No, but I doubt they would make the drive together if they were.”

“I’ll tell you, if Kathy even suggests such a thing I’m going to tell her…” Bill’s words were interrupted by the sound of a car advancing up the driveway. He stood up to look, expecting to see his daughter, but instantly became irritated the moment he realized who it was. “I’ll be dog-gone,” he said. “It’s John Tacker. I hope he brought a gun to defend himself.”

Bill practically dove for the door before his wife could respond.

Lynn quickly followed her husband but remained inside, choosing to watch from behind the screen door.

“Stop right there, John,” yelled Bill, holding his hand up and walking in front of the car’s path.

John slammed on the brakes and jumped out. “Bill, I told you I was going to call the FAA if that airplane of yours flew over my house again, and I meant it!”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“That airplane of yours practically took the antenna off my roof this morning. And by God, I will not have that happen again!”

“I heard the airplane, John, but it was someone out of Schultzville,” claimed Bill.

“Nice try, but I saw it takeoff. That little death trap nearly hit my oak tree before it got airborne. Then it skimmed five feet above the ground while heading for my house. This is the last straw! It’s bad enough you people are flying that old thing out of your backyard, but now you’re doing aerobatics. I simply won’t have it!”

It suddenly hit Bill like a ton of bricks. A flash of panic seared through his body and his face felt flushed. He swiftly turned and ran toward the tie-down spot for the Cessna.

Bill’s sudden departure took John by surprise. After a brief pause, John took off after him.

Twenty feet from the empty parking space, Bill stopped dead in his tracks: ‘626 was gone. “Lynn!” screamed Bill. “Are the kids in the house?”

Lynn ran as fast as she could through the house calling their names, only to hear silence in response. She flung open the window in Lucy’s room and cried out, “No, they’re gone! They’re gone! Oh my, where could they be?”

*

The dark billowing clouds forced the tiny intruder into a steep descending bank. As the airspeed increased, the turbulence and rain pelted the Cessna incessantly. Unsure of what would happen next, Lucy covered her eyes. But Jack refused to panic. He sat straight up with a rigid expression on his face. The young man planned to meet death head-on.

The vertigo-inducing ride seemed never-ending. Neither of the Cessna’s occupants could discern up from down. The airspeed and altimeter needles moved in ways that seemed impossible. Both were convinced the airplane was upside down, but had no idea how to recover from such a situation.

Having feasted on their folly, the demons of weather graciously decided that a slap on the wrist would be enough. They viciously spat ‘626 out, but not before forcing it into a ninety-degree bank and shaking it firmly just one more time.

Once in the clear, both young pilots looked up and saw the ground approaching at an awkward angle. The unusual sight left them momentarily confused. Each tried to reconcile in their minds what their eyes were telling them, but their brains refused to process it all.

Hearing the increased wind noise, and noticing that their airspeed was rapidly approaching the yellow arc, Jack cried, “Lucy!”

The Cessna was approaching the ground fast and Lucy had precious little time to react. She grabbed the controls and pulled back the throttle. Then, when it felt safe to do so, she slowly began pulling the nose up. The young teen was well-aware that she had to work fast, but also knew that overreacting could be equally dangerous.

“Lucy!” shouted Jack a second time.

“I’ve got it,” she replied, while gingerly working the controls. Lucy could see that the trees were approaching fast, growing ever larger with each passing second. But she’d been warned by her instructor about the dangers of over-stressing the airplane. Lucy tiptoed on a fine line, knowing she had little time left, while still trying desperately to adhere to what she’d been taught.

“Pull up!” exclaimed Jack.

“Shush,” she replied.

Lucy’s eyes rapidly scanned inside and out. She knew the ground was coming, but their airspeed was much too high to simply yank on the controls. She said to herself,
Easy Lucy. Nice and easy.

The Cessna barely cleared the trees and resumed climbing a mere fifty feet above the ground. Jack turned to Lucy and said, “I’m scared. Let’s go back.”

Lucy was scared, too. She didn’t want to go back, but neither did she want to kill herself and her little brother. She fought a short battle in her mind, then looked at her brother and said, “OK.”

Lucy held the Cessna’s nose in a climb until they reached one thousand feet. Once level, she scanned the horizon from left to right, but oddly, nothing looked familiar. Lucy didn’t want to admit it to her brother; she fought the urge to tell him. Finally, after looking to and fro with no sign of a recognizable landmark, she decided to fess up. “Where are we?” she asked.

Jack looked around. He divided each part of the ground into sections and then studied each individual slice one at a time, just as his grandfather had taught him. After a nervous few minutes, he cried out, “Look, over there! It’s the radio tower for W.A.R.M. Fly over in that direction.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lucy.

Jack didn’t reply and Lucy didn’t ask again. She knew he was sure.

“Whatever you do, Lucy, don’t hit any of the guide wires,” said Jack in a matter-of-fact tone.

Lucy looked at her brother and smiled, saying, “Don’t be stupid all your life.”

The two young aviators studied the ground and the sky, working together to navigate their Cessna home.

“There’s Bald Mountain!” noted Jack.

“Where?”

“There, to our right.”

“OK, that’s good. We’re on course,” said Lucy. “I sure hope Mr. Tacker isn’t around when we land. That could mean big trouble.”

Jack remembered the first time he met John Tacker. It was a meeting he never told anyone about, not even Lucy. After he’d helped him with his car, the two became friends. It was one of the few things he allowed himself to feel guilty about because, he’d reasoned, it was the right thing to do. But Lucy was right. If Mr. Tacker was around when they landed, there would be heck to pay.

The one hundred horsepower Continental engine coughed, tearing Jack away from his thoughts and back into the cockpit. He looked at the tachometer, but everything seemed fine. He squinted his eyes, pouted his lips and glanced at the panel, wondering what he’d heard and whether or not it would return.

Lucy heard the hiccup, too. The unexpected break in the engine noise caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up. She, too, scanned the gauges, but could not detect any anomalies. Lucy subconsciously pushed the throttle forward a tiny bit, silently hoping everything was OK. What she didn’t know was that the momentary engine cough was a warning, advising the pilots that their four cylinder engine had just contracted the flu.