Solo (25 page)

I called Mr. Sanderson, described what I’d seen several years earlier, and asked if he might know the gentleman trying to fly the homebuilt floatplane.

Silence. “Did he have red hair?”

“Yessir, he did. Kind of thin red hair.”

“That would be Tom Purcell. I’ll give you his phone number.”

When Mr. Purcell answered the phone, I explained who I was and asked if he remembered the day in question.

“I sure do,” he said. “That particular aircraft never got off the water, and I finally dismantled it and with some of the parts built a new floatplane—and that one never flew either. But with parts of the second, I built a third, and she’s flying just fine. Would you like to see it?”

“Well, of course.” I told him I was working on a novel,
and in the novel a character owned an airplane similar to the one I’d seen at Lake Wheeler. Could I ask him a few questions?

He was happy to talk and invited me to his office. Before he hung up, he said, “I’ve got some notebooks you can examine. They tell the whole story.”

Notebooks?

My novel, still without a title, needed structure, a thread, to somehow hold all its scenes and stories together. I immediately imagined my character Albert Copeland keeping a flying notebook, and because the novel was in many ways about a family, I saw that his keeping such a notebook, entering nontechnical “family” notes in it, could be exactly the thread my novel needed. So I made up notebook entries and put them here and there in the novel, then called my editor and told her about the added notebooks. Since we were looking for a title for the book, I suggested
The Floatplane Notebooks.
She liked the title, and it stuck.

To visit Mr. Purcell before I finished the book offered me a chance for new material, but I didn’t want to risk another year of working on a novel I’d been wrestling with off and on for almost a decade. So I finished the book,
then
visited Mr. Purcell.

I found him in a small office with adjoining workrooms near the Raleigh-Durham Airport. He loved to talk flying, and I loved to listen. He once had dinner with Orville Wright. He’d invented a kind of glider for the Army during World War II; it was launched from larger aircraft high in the air so that it could glide along and finally land behind
enemy lines. (A glider—
behind
enemy lines?!) He had designed a device to reduce vibration in nuclear power plants. He showed me pictures and diagrams of his inventions and projects. Finally he showed me his floatplane notebooks.

“Take a look through them if you like,” he said.

I thumbed through the notebooks and found his entry for his first successful flight in his third-generation homebuilt. It went something like this: “The aircraft lifted off and flew about one hundred yards. I taxied back and, just before reaching the dock, ran out of fuel.” I flipped through a few pages and found hand-drawn charts and diagrams and short statements like “This didn’t work, so I tried this.”

It was as if he’d used my character’s notebooks as a guide. They were both—all three of us, actually—delighted to put words on paper about this business of getting into the air in a flying machine.

A
T SOME POINT DURING
the reign of Dusty’s Air Taxi, I began keeping a notebook of my own, about flying my own airplane,
Annabelle.
It was written in the spirit of Tom Purcell’s and Albert Copeland’s notebooks—dry, terse, third-person accounts.

17 Nov 89. First flight of the air taxi service after its establishment on 7 Nov 1989. Purpose of flight was to transport the pilot to Hot Springs, Va., for a reading of his fiction at a conference of the Virginia Library Association. Passenger along for the ride was Michael McFee. Takeoff was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. or 0830 hours. The aircraft would not start with the battery-operated starter. A hand start was attempted and was successful at 0940. Takeoff was at 0946 hours. Passenger experienced minor discomforts due to cold air and rough air. Visibility was good. Destination airfield (Ingalls Field, Hot Springs, Va.) was along the northeastern end of a mountaintop, and at the end of the
runway was a cliff. An exciting place to land. At 1500, hand-start attempts for flight back to N.C. proved unsuccessful because of cold weather. Pilot and passenger rented automobile. 21 Nov. was planned return.

20 Nov. West Virginia aircraft mechanic reported on phone that aircraft was battery-started without incident, with master switch in down/on position rather than up/on position. Return trip by auto to retrieve aircraft postponed until 25 Nov 89 because of inclement weather. Snow.

22 Nov 89. Services of aerial photographer obtained for future uses when called upon. David Mc-Girt of Buies Creek, N.C.

27 Nov 89. Pilot and passenger Tim McLaurin drove rental car 5½ hours to Ingalls Field, Va., to recover aircraft. En route Mr. Edgerton and Mr. McLaurin were lost twice and received one speeding ticket. Arrived at 1200 hours. First attempt to start
Annabelle,
after snow and ice removal, was unsuccessful, though it was determined that battery and starter were connected via master switch in down/on position. Aircraft was pushed into a large hangar by Edgerton, McLaurin, and two locals. Engine cowling was opened. Electrical power was available in hangar. Various extension cords enabled the positioning of a hair dryer blowing on left magneto and one on right. Space heater was placed on an oilcan sitting below engine so as to be near engine. A plastic extension hose directed air from heater into bottom cowling opening. A 2-amp battery recharger was connected to battery. Openings in cowling that would allow cold air entry/heat escape were stuffed with NFL Dolphins jacket, bath towels, a
sleeping bag, and a sweater. Long-handle underwear were stuffed around air intake; two sleeping bags covered cowling on outside. Object was to heat engine. All apparati were brought from N.C. or purchased en route (hose and duct tape). After one hour of heating, 1245–1345, all apparati were removed/disconnected, switches turned on. Aircraft started instantly when starter button was touched. At 1210 pilot took off without incident, flew to Decker Field with touch-and-go landing at Person County Airport just south of Roxboro, N.C. Touchdown at Decker Field: 1600. Income from first Dusty’s Air Taxi venture: $60, Virginia Library Association. Expenses: Aircraft fuel and oil, $60; mechanic, $125; auto fuel, $25; Virginia Highway Patrol, $68; food, $25; duct tape and hose, $5.31; Hertz, $367.

For some reason (embarrassment?) I wrote no comments in my notebook about the return flight above. Tim was in the backseat. After takeoff I was navigating out of the mountains. Something was wrong. I was lost—in the rugged mountains. I did not realize that my compass was malfunctioning. Interference from a new radio was throwing the compass off by about thirty-five degrees. I kept finding myself unable to match my map (specific river bends, railroad crossings, and so forth) with what was below me on the ground. I didn’t consider that the compass was wrong. I was mumbling about the problem when Tim, behind me, asked, “What’s wrong?”

I told him.

He said, “I’ve got a compass.”

I turned and looked over my shoulder. He was pulling a necklace from inside his shirt, and dangling from it was a small compass.

“What direction do you need to fly?” he asked.

“Almost south,” I said. “About one hundred fifty degrees.”

I waited.

“Well, you need to go that way.”

I looked back.

He was pointing.

Soon we saw a water tower below. I buzzed it.
SOUTH BOSTON
(a town in southern Virginia) was written on the side. I knew where we were, and found our way home.

2 Dec 89. Chief pilot and seven-year-old daughter, Catherine, drove to Decker Field with chest of drawers in pickup truck to be installed in hangar. Items in chest of drawers included cleansers, cleaning rags and towels, tools, life preservers—orange—for extended over-water flight, lightbulbs for engine heating, extension cords, small rechargeable vacuum cleaner, windshield cover from previous owner, and other useful items. Pilot and daughter started aircraft and took off at approximately 1600 hours for 30-minute training flight in local area. The following were executed: several lazy 8s, several steep-banked turns, a power-on stall, a power-off stall, a spiraling turn. The passenger expressed enjoyment of all maneuvers. The landing was, of necessity, with a tailwind. The pilot placed 200-watt bulb in engine, with cowling openings stopped up with rags, towels, sponges—for experiment on following morning.

3 Dec 89. Following experiment was successful: starting engine. After a cold night. With lightbulb for overnight heat.

6 Dec 89. Gary Hawkings, filmmaker, questioned the chief pilot at Decker Field. Pilot sat on a stool in front of
Annabelle.
Questions regarded Tim McLaurin, Dusty’s program development chair and part-time navigator. Gary was making a film called
The Rough South of Tim McLaurin.
After the interview, the pilot took the filmmaker for a short, filmed ride around the field.

7 Dec 89. Mission to Fayetteville put on hold due to inclement weather: snow.

9 Dec 89. Mission to Fayetteville postponed again. Weather.

14 Dec 89. Plans made for Dusty’s first annual meeting and planning session, for Sunday, Dec. 17, at 1730. Place to be determined.

17 Dec. 1830 hours. First annual meeting and planning session. Another Thyme Restaurant in Durham, N.C. First two choices, In the Raw on the Eno and Weeping Radish, were closed. Attending: C. Edgerton, pilot; D. McGirt, aerial photographer. Displayed: Dusty’s Air Taxi’s first aerial photographs, which were of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Discussed: photography and air-to-air combat. Meeting adjourned 1930 hours.

11 Jan 1990. Chief pilot took daughter for aircraft ride to Chapel Hill, purchased Dr Pepper and small bag of potato chips for her. One landing in Chapel Hill. On return flight, pilot accomplished lazy 8s, steep-banked turns, power-off stalls, and slow flight.
On postflight, pilot failed to tie down aircraft. Returned to field and did so. High winds forecast for 12 Jan. One bulb and battery charger left in place, no cowling stuffing.

22 Aug 90. A mouse chewed up into little pieces a candy bar wrapper left in the aircraft.

M
Y FRIEND WITH THE
compass around his neck, Tim McLaurin, glimpsed a copperhead crossing the road one day and realized he didn’t have his ever-ready pillowcase (snake carrier) with him in his pickup truck. So when he caught the snake, he held it in his right hand by the neck so that it couldn’t bite him, and drove toward home with his left. As he turned into his driveway, the snake wriggled loose enough to bite Tim on the middle joint of his right index finger.

We talked on the phone. He was in the hospital, but he downplayed the whole incident.

When I visited him, Tim, still in bed, held up his hand and arm for me to inspect. The arm was twice its normal size, his tattoo spread wide, and at first I thought the finger was wrapped in black leather. It wasn’t—that was skin.

He survived, of course, but he wasn’t as lucky as he’d been when he was simultaneously bitten by two rattlesnakes
a few years back. He’d been feeding them. They “knew” him, he claimed, and thus the bites had been dry, without venom.

Tim died of cancer in 2002, and I lost a true and valued friend. He and I flew together in
Annabelle
several times after that day back in 1989 when he pulled the compass up from around his neck. One day not long after that trip, he said, “How about you fly me down to Wilmington to buy four rattlesnakes?”

An image came into my head: the two of us in
Anna-belle
’s tiny cockpit, he in the rear, and I up front—and somewhere in there with us, a wooden cage or cooler holding four rattlesnakes. The next image came to me: the six of us in an upside-down crashed airplane that was about to catch on fire—Tim and I hanging upside down by our seat belts with the snakes loose below our heads on the ceiling.

I did not want to say no to Tim’s request. But I didn’t want to say yes either. So I changed the subject. I’d like to think that if pressured, I would have said yes.

The image of two guys hanging upside down by their seat belts in an airplane about to catch fire with snakes waiting for them on the ceiling seemed ripe for fiction. So I wrote a short story about that and then later rewrote it as a scene for the novel
In Memory of Junior.

J
IM
H
ENDERSON
,
ANOTHER FRIEND
, and I were about to go for a ride. It was Monday, January 21, 1991, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Jim wanted to take aerial photographs of the Friends School that his son and my daughter
attended, and I was happy to offer the aerial platform. As usual, I called the weather station at Raleigh-Durham Airport. The reported wind was fifteen knots out of the north. My rule was not to fly if the ground wind was fifteen knots or more. As explained, landing a tail dragger in high wind is tricky and dangerous.

Good sense, safe sense, dictated that I not fly that day. The wind was too strong. But I was confident and ready to fly. I’d yet to have a cheap lesson about “confidence.” Even though Raleigh-Durham was the official weather station for the area, perhaps I could cheat. I called another airport, Person County Airport, five miles north of Decker Field, and asked about the winds there. Twelve knots out of the north. Good, I would fly.

I finished my preflight check, we climbed in, I cranked, and we taxied out of the hangar to the end of the runway, which was around that short dogleg.

On takeoff roll, the aircraft felt slow and heavy. Because of the high tailwind, the roll was very long. We lifted off.
Annabelle
was not climbing well. Far across a field ahead loomed a line of tall trees. I’d become uneasy during the long roll, and now I visualized not clearing the trees. I immediately aborted the takeoff, dropping
Anna-belle
back down onto the runway. But we were almost out of runway and moving along at a good clip. No problem, I thought, because beyond the runway was an open field. I’d walked over it soon after renting my hangar. What I didn’t know was that since then, a ditch had been dug perpendicular to our ground path. We rolled into the field and
Annabelle
’s main landing gear dropped into the ditch.
The rear of the airplane lifted into the air and continued over the nose, as if in slow motion.
Ka-wham.
We landed upside down.