X-Plane 8 - Flying an F-14

For some time now, I’ve been searching for a flight simulator that would let me fly an F-14. I was especially interested in finding something that had some realistic shipboard operations. I seem to have found what I was looking for in X-Plane 8.
Admittedly, an F-14 model is not natively included in the sim. But the ability to launch and land from the ship, to practice formation flying, and to practice air-to-air refueling is present, albeit with some limitations. However, there is a large community of X-Plane fliers and some of them are into building models of aircraft that are not included. The F-14 model I’m flying is one of those and was manufactured by someone by the screen name of Piglet and to whom I am eternally grateful. I’ve tried several F-14 models, including one built for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. I believe the model in X-Plane to be superior to it, though each model sports something the other doesn’t.

I bought X-Plane 8 Deluxe from Fry’s late last week and spent a lot of time the past weekend loading it up and flying it. Despite the fact the package was labeled as a Mac only Universal Binary product, the CD contained Windows, Mac OS, and Linux versions. The installation of the basic sim only took 1 GB of space (Windows or Mac); however, that did not include the files necessary to yield photorealistic ground textures anywhere. I added in most of the North American continent (which is on its own DVD) and that added approximately 8 GB of files. The package included a total of 7 DVD’s that contained the simulator and all the graphics files needed to cover the entire Earth; if you install it all, the installation will take 60 GB of space.

Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that the version in the box was not the latest and had to contact the X-Plane website to download it. Unlike most other software applications, the software is not updated by replacing changed files but is updated by replacing it with a complete download of the latest version. This required me to be online for about 30 minutes or so using a fast cable modem. Secondly, I had already added the graphic files to the earlier version before I discovered that fact, so I had to reinstall them as well. Overall, that put me online and at the computer for at least an extra hour. If you buy and install X-Plane out of the box, be sure you look for any updates before you do anything else.
I have run the Mac version on my dual 2 GHz G5 PowerMac (4GB RAM) and on my 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro (2 GB RAM) and saw no problems. I have also run the Windows version on the MBP and saw what looked to me like equivalent performance. Note though that the MBP runs were performed with copies of X-Plane installed to external Firewire 400 7200 RPM hard drives vice the MBP’s internal 5400 RPM drive.

The F-14 model shows a very accurate though incomplete cockpit reconstruction; still, it is one of the better ones I have seen to date. The biggest disappointment is that the angle of attack gauge doesn’t work, and that is one of the major tools a Naval Aviator uses to help him fly aboard. The tailhook control is a big red button instead of a hook shaped lever on the pilot’s right, the wingsweep doesn’t work, and the landing gear handle on the pilot’s left is missing as well as any other indicator that the gear is down. I’d have to guess the landing gear position by judging how the aircraft was responding and whether an automated voice harped at me on final that the gear was up. There were no DLC (Direct Lift Control) or Autothrottle functions, though I didn’t miss these and most guys I flew with tried to avoid using DLC to control glide path except as a last resort. Still, I’m not fussing; I’m glad to have something reasonably close.

The Carrier Approach is listed under the Special Approach menu function; the approach starts probably about ten miles out at about three thousand feet. In reality, this is kind of a no man’s land since an instrument approach generally starts at 1200 feet and a VFR approach (break, downwind) is at 800-1000 and abeam the ship. The gear appears to be out but the airplane is incredibly fast, and there is no shipboard MLS (Microwave Landing System) anywhere to be had. Navigation is strictly visual. In the real world, if this were the case, the airplane would be flying into the break. However, it is possible to fly VFR to the deck by trying to slow the airplane down (the use of speedbrakes helps) and using the HUD’s (Heads UP Display) velocity vector to target the landing area. (This was a strict no-no in real Naval Aviation, but the ball simply doesn’t show up until you’re in close.) As you get within the last few miles of the ship, the Fresnel Landing Lens (the pilots called it “the ball”) will be visible, though somewhat blossomed, and can be used to provide accurate glide path information. In fact, the mechanization of the ball is one of the joys of this sim; you can use it to fly aboard just like is done in the real world.

If you trap in the landing area, the hook will abruptly stop you; if not, you’ll know you boltered as you go ripping off the ship’s pointy end.

There is also a catapult launch you can experience, though the deck run is a bit shorter than the real thing. It’s controlled by the brakes, which would be okay except full engine power will slide the airplane forward with them engaged, forcing you to release them quickly. Obviously, in the real world, no catapult shot ever begins without the jet’s engines either at Military or, in the case of the F-14A, full burner.

Amazingly, you can even decide to try your hand at air-to-air refueling, choosing between a flying boom technique the USAF uses or the “basket” approach used by the USN/USMC. However, the basket is missing in the “basket approach”, leaving you without any real target to fly into.

On top of all that, there is a “formation flying” entry. The sim puts you several miles behind your target with much too much closure at the beginning (somewhere on the order of 100 knots), so the only way to salvage any run was to immediately go to Idle on the throttles and open the speedbrakes to Full until you got close.
All that sounds like a bitch, I know; but I’m happier than a lark right now that X-Plane supports all of that, as flawed as it might be. The application also includes a space shuttle landing simulator I haven’t yet explored, and I’m looking forward to getting some time to see how it compares to the shuttle simulators I’ve flown.

If you ask me which flight simulator I prefer, I’m going to answer that it depends on what I’m going to do. X-Plane is providing me military flight experiences I can’t find anywhere else. But for brushing up on my real IFR pilot rating skills, I’m going to stick with Microsoft Flight Simulator, at least for now. I don’t believe there is a Grumman Cheetah model for X-Plane and there is for MS Flight Simulator. But, for the moment, I’m spending most of my time learning to master the F-14 and see how close to my memories I can get.

Locked in – The Almost Undocumented Cheetah Feature

One of the neat things about the Grumman series of single-engine aircraft are the fighter-like canopies. It’s great to be able to open them on the ground, especially in the summer when it’s so hot, to get a natural fan blowing through the cockpit. They can even be opened in flight; I met one Tiger pilot who told me his wife would almost refuse to fly during the summer without it open.

There are some downsides to that arrangement, however. One is that, in the event of a crash, there is some significant chance the canopy will be sealed closed, usually by some deformation of the fuselage. The second is that it’s possible to be locked in the airplane, especially when the locks get old and can rotate, even a little, on their own.

When we bought the airplane, the previous owner mentioned to me the lock could be problematic. I think he had gotten locked in once. In the year and a half we have owned the airplane, I have suffered through it twice. Why didn’t I get it fixed? Believe me, after the first time it happened, I did talk to my mechanic about doing just that. The problem was one of parts and FAA approval. In short, I wasn’t able to find a good solution. That has caused my wife and I some significant concern, even though we knew from past experience we could climb out through the baggage door if necessary. The scenario that really concerned us was getting locked in the airplane in the event of a fire.

The second time it happened to me was when I took the airplane down to Galveston to get an oil change a couple of weeks ago. Once I got home, I started searching the Internet to see if someone had come up with a solution. Not finding one, I went to the American Yankee Association (AYA) website and started looking through the Service Bulletins and Letters for anything having to do with canopy locks. Much to my surprise, I did find something. It didn’t do a thing to help me fix the canopy lock; but I learned that the Grumman (or American or Bede) engineers had provided me an “out”. I didn’t know it was there because it was not documented in my 76 owner’s manual, a later model 77 pilot’s handbook, and the placard pointing to it, put there by the Service Letter, wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen it because the only time it became evident was when the canopy was locked, and most of the time I wasn’t in the airplane it was.

When you lock the canopy, a small lever sitting above the normal canopy lever pops out. This lever is designed to unlock the canopy regardless of the external lock position as long as it is pushed in. It is a safeguard against the occupants of the airplane getting locked into the aircraft. The Service Letter (77-3) was addressing the fact that many pilots back then, just like now, were not aware the feature had been designed into the canopy linkage.

Needless to say, I was and am extremely relieved to learn about it. My wife was and is, too. My mechanic and I are now working to comply with the Service Letter. That means making and placing the proper placard in the airplane and getting the little Savior Latch painted red.

What is hard to understand is how such a major safety feature could escape mention in any of the airplane’s pilot’s handbooks. You can bet I’ll be digging through the rest of the airplane’s maintenance documentation to make sure there’s nothing else I need to know about and don’t.

There is one consistent thing about being an airplane owner, and it is that I’m always learning something I didn’t know.

Oil Change

It was time to take the Cheetah down to Galveston for an oil change. I said something to my wife about having a mechanic at Pearland do it, but she really trusted Bill and didn’t want anyone else working on the plane unless we just couldn’t help it. Fair enough. Being around Bill was always fun and he was great about letting owners learn to do the work themselves. So, when the weather cleared last Sunday, I went down to the “carport”, performed a pre-flight, and then called Bill on my cell phone as I sat in the cockpit ready to start the plane. When he said, “I’m here,” I cranked up the Cheetah, ran through my checks and checklists, and took off toward the scattered Galveston skyline.

It was a sunny day with almost no clouds and good visibility. I leveled the airplane off at at sixteen hundred feet (the NASA T-38 flying-into-Ellington-altitude), set the throttle at 2500 RPM and cruised toward the ragged coastline south, listening to Houston approach busily route airplanes I couldn’t see. I could see cars and homes and businesses and small towns below; and as I approached the towers, spires, and flat, round metal tanks of the Texas City refinery, I flipped my radio over to the frequency for Galveston Tower as I dialed a second radio in to listen to automated winds and weather. Once I had the winds and weather, I told Galveston Tower I was about eight miles north for landing. They cleared me for a left downwind to runway 35, which I acknowledged as I checked the directional gyro to confirm my angle off. I had it just right, already perfectly set up for a recommended forty-five degree entry. I pressed in. My airspeed indicator showed 125 mph and my GPS groundspeed showed 118 knots.

Just inside five miles out, I ran my Landing Checklist but waited to pull the throttle back until I was about three-quarters of a mile from the runway and rolling into a right turn. As I leveled the wings, I reported downwind to the tower, and they cleared me to land. I kept the flaps up until I rolled in on final, adding a few touches of power to carry me across the threshold where ym airplane and I touched down past the numbers but short of the instrument landing marks. Rolling across runway 31/13, I was just beginning to wonder where the tower wanted me to get off when they asked where I was going. When I replied “the north hangars”, they cleared me to get off at taxiway Delta or Echo, my choice. Both were a bit down the runway, so I gave the Cheetah just a little throttle to expedite off and then turned us onto taxiway Delta. Stopping just past the “hold short” lines, I completed the Post-Landing checklist and then called Ground and told them where I was and where I wanted to go. They cleared me “to parking”, so I turned her left at taxiway Alpha and taxied north until it was time to peel off and head directly for Bill’s hangar. I swung the Cheetah partially around and stopped about twenty feet outside his hangar door which was filled with a red and white Cessna 172.

After I shutdown the airplane, I pulled on the canopy latch to unlock it but it was locked closed. DAMN! (This had happened to me once before and will be the subject of my next blog.) Hoping Bill could get me out, I sat and waited until I could signal him, hoping he’d understand. As a last resort, I could pull out my cell phone and call him; but he saw me and understood. Grabbing a large metal hoop filled with airplane keys, he hopped up on my airplane and used one of them to unlock my canopy. I climbed out as he headed back into his hangar to talk to two women near the back and looking at a red Pitts S-1. I followed him back where he asked me to push my airplane away from the hangar a bit so he could get the 172 out and reposition the Pitts to the front. Walking back to my airplane, I pushed the airplane back about twenty feet, and turned to find Bill had already attached a tow bar to the nose of the 172 and was hauling it out. As soon as he finished parking it parallel to the hangar doors, he retreated back into the hangar to fetch the Pitts. The women studied it as he pulled it into position; they were there to attach some sings to this little red showbird.

A Cessna Cardinal RG carrying two pilots taxied past, whipped back around, and shut down. One of the pilots was going to pick up the 172. Bill went out to meet and greet them; as he did, I heard one of them ask him if the airplane was ready. He answered it was, even though it had been rebuilt from the front firewall forward. It belonged to a flight training school out of Dallas, but it had been left in Galveston after its pilot had rammed it into a fuel truck. The good news was that no one and no other airplane got hurt.

None of us were quite sure what made the 172’s student pilot decide to hand prop the airplane after he landed and gassed it up. (Bill thought an alternator wire might have come loose in flight, leaving the guy with a dead battery.) In any case, after he fueled the airplane, the battery would not turn the engine over. The pilot decided to try to start the airplane on his own. Big mistake, especially with no chocks or tie downs holding it back. He set the throttle, pushed the mixture in, turned the magnetos to ON, grabbed the prop, and pulled it through. The engine started right away and jumped to the three-quarters throttle! The Cessna lunged forward like a race horse as he clutched a strut to stop it; and though some folks feel he turned it away from other airplanes, he and his steed smashed head-on into the FBO’s 100 Low-Lead Avgas-toting fuel truck. Luckily, the prop chewed into the truck’s front plastic and metal cowling rather than into its full fuel tank, and no fire broke out. Needless to say, both the truck and the airplane’s front ends were smashed. Bill had been working on it ever since, including installing a factory-rebuilt Lycoming engine in it. The pilots were here to pick it up and fly it back; and, understandably, Bill walked off to talk to them and give them the airplane’s logs. I decided to rock back and wait, hoping it would not take too long to kick them out the door and get airborne.

It really wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before one of the pilots got back in the Cardinal RG, cranked it up, and taxied it out, heading for the fuel pumps. The Cessna 172 pilot, a black-headed young man in his middle-to-late twenties and carrying a medium build, walked around the Cessna to preflight it. Once done, he shook Bill’s hand, climbed in, and on the second attempt, got it started. As he taxied away from the hangar, Bill walked back over to me, told me to pull the Cheetah closer to the hangar so we wouldn’t get oil out on the ramp, and disappeared toward the back of his hangar. I pulled the Cheetah back up, being careful not to get too close to the Pitts lest I accidentally hit it. Bill brought out a bucket, placing it just behind the nose of the airplane, and told me to go into the hangar and to look for a hose with some safety wire on it. My airplane was equipped with an oil quick drain. All I needed to do was hook the hose onto it and push up until it clicked open. Sounded simple enough. But, then, it always does…

I scoured the hangar and hangar floor to find three hoses, one black and two green, with safety wire wrapped around their tops and sticking out from them to form a hook like you’d make by bending a piece of clothes hangar. The hoses seemed to be about the same size, but the black rubber one looked a bit bigger than the others and the most likely to fit over the quick drain’s snout. Hauling it out to the airplane, I popped open my engine cowling to give me the best access to the engine compartment and then threaded the hose down through the bottom of the cowling until it rested over the top and inside of the bucket. Or so I thought. Leaning in, I pushed the hose up against the nozzle of the quick drain but it didn’t fit over it like I had hoped though it was just wide enough to slide onto its bottom. I pushed harder and felt the drain give a little but didn’t see any oil hitting the bucket. That’s when I realized the other end of the hose had slipped over the top of the bucket, and I was spilling oil onto the tarmac. I quickly let go, and the oil stopped but not before the hot, black liquid had flowed over my hand. OUCH!

Cursing, I plopped the other end of the hose into the bucket and then walked into the hangar to find some paper towels to wipe my hand clean. After getting somewhat cleaned up, I went back to my airplane, felt the quick drain and looked at it the best I could to understand what I was feeling, placed the hose under it again, making sure the other end was IN the bucket. I pushed up on the quick drain again, this time putting some snap in it and heard it click open. Holding the hose up to it while the rest of the oil in the case drained out, I stayed there until not even a drop was leaking out of the hose. Once I knew I could safely I move away, I removed the hose and pulled down on the quick drain to lock it back in place. SNAP!

Bill was back in the hangar talking to the women. I told him I had finished draining the oil and asked him if he had any “kitty litter” I could use to clean up my mess. He told me we’d worry about that later as he left to fetch 6 quarts of AeroShell 100 oil and a new oil filter. After placing the items down near the airplane, he returned to a tool box and got me a rather large open end wrench and a pair of safety wire pliers. He told me to go cut the safety wire off the oil filter and use the wrench, if needed, to remove it. My oil filter was wired around the base of the oil pressure sensor, and it took a bit of twisting and turning to get the pliers in there just right, but I did. Clipping the wire off, I put a box end wrench around the end of the oil filter and gave it a tug, and the filter loosened up. A small gush of oil flowed out of it as I took it off. I asked Bill what he wanted to do with it. Grabbing it, he emptied the filter into our oil waste bucket and then took it to a workbench in the back of his hangar.

“We’re going to cut it open,” he said.

“Ahhh,” I gushed, “to look for metal particles that might be coming from the engine.”

“Correct!” he replied.

We heard an airplane taxi by in front of the hangar and spin around to stop in front of it. Its pilot ran its engine up and then we heard the engine’s speed drop as he did a “mag check”, except the engine’s smooth firing was replaced by a staccato of pops. They were coming from the red and white Cessna 172 that had never departed. Its pilot shrugged his shoulders and then shut the airplane down.

“I was afraid of that,” Bill said, as he walked out to greet the man.

“Is that lead fouling?” I asked.

“No, oil. It’s very common with a new engine.”

“It’s got less than 50 hours on it?”

“More like fifteen minutes…”

Immediately, I understood what was happening. The engine was brand new, and the rings in the cylinders had yet to seat. Because of that, more oil was blowing by the rings than usual and fowling the spark plugs. With time, assuming the rings were properly seated, the problem would go away. But what happened now was largely dependent on the pilots who flew the airplane. Rings seat best when new engines are flown at 65% power or better (and 70%-75% power is best) for about the first fifty hours, and then eased back to lower power settings (which I won’t do since I typically cruise at 75% power!). You have to know that or you’ll make the mistake of treating the airplane engine like a car’s and ruin it by taking it too easy. There are horror stories of pilots who wound up overhauling cylinders again at only a hundred or two hundred hours of flight time. Throwing an additional $6,000 after a $17,000 outlay has gotta hurt!

Bill pulled the cowling off the airplane and removed the lower spark plugs off the left side, brought them into the hangar and cleaned them off with a sand-blasting machine, checked the spark plug gap, and then took them back out to the airplane. He installed them, replaced the cowling, and the pilot crawled back in and started his airplane. After just a moment, he ran the engine up again and did another mag check and got the same result…almost. The malfunctioning mag had been fixed but now the other mag was misbehaving, sputtering and popping like the first.

Bill ran through the whole cycle again. As he did, I was hunting around the hangar for some solvent Bill claimed was in a five gallon black can. I was supposed to use it to clean all the spilled oil out of my airplane. I hunted, and I hunted, but I found nothing. Bill took a look, too, when he brought the next set of spark plugs in, but he couldn’t find it either.

“Take some solvent out of the parts cleaner,” he said as he headed out to the Cessna again.

I figured out that the “parts cleaner” he was talking about was a metal sink hooked up to a solvent can and an electric pump operated by a switch on the unit’s side. But what did I put the solvent in? I found a wide, empty yogurt cup in a nearby trash can and filled it about three quarters full of solvent. Back at my airplane, a hose hooked to a compressed air pump laid on the ground with a nozzle trailing a small, plastic hose hooked into the thing. Picking up the nozzle, I carefully placed its hose down in the yogurt cup and pulled the trigger. Solvent hissed out of the nozzle, chasing oil out of the airplane and onto the cement tarmac. Keeping my head back so I didn’t breathe the stuff anymore than I could help, I used it to clean the oil off all the compartments and parts I could see and then clean off my nosewheel and tire. Once I had done all I could with the solvent, I pulled the hose out of the cup and continued blasting everything that needed drying with cleanly polluted compressed air.

Behind me, Bill finished reinstalling the cleaned plugs and the cowling; and the young man from Dallas hopped into the flight school’s 172 and started it again. He ran it up, checked the mags, and gave Bill a “thumbs up”. Bill waved him off as he taxied out for what we hoped would be a permanent trip north.

Meanwhile, the women were finishing up with the little red Pitts. It was being flown by an airshow pilot, and he wanted the plane to look the part. “Mike Smith” was now surrounded by two white stars, all in flowing white decals underneath the rim of the small cockpit. That looked pretty cool, and the woman doing the work said it was “dirt cheap” to do. Which made me wonder if I could talk my wife into letting me do the same with the Cheetah. Of course, my name would be on the left side and hers on the right, since that’s where she normally sat. But a small voice said that if she ever really did get her pilot’s license, it could start eating at her after a while. Deciding that cowardice was, in this case, the better part of valor, I decided not to say anything. Though the devil in me roared back that it might get her off her ass…

The Cessna left and the women left and the sun was going with them. Bill felt he needed to apologize for the whole thing taking so long; but, even though I had hoped the whole thing would go faster, I hadn’t been and wasn’t in a hurry. He came over and we opened up the new oil filter and he applied a silicone lubricant to the filter’s rubber seal. He wrote the airplane’s N number, the date, and engine tach’s reading on the filter with a black marker, saying:

“Put this on hand tight and then go one revolution more. That’s all. Use some of the writing on the filter to tell you when you’ve hit one rev.”

Taking the filter out to the airplane, I did exactly what he said, using the big open end wrench to help me get the extra one rev. As I finished, Bill appeared beside me with safety wire and safety wire pliers, and wired up the oil filter with safety wire to make sure it didn’t rotate off. I had hoped to do that, but I’d ask for that next time.

As I pushed the airplane back and buttoned it up, Bill dumped some kitty litter on the oil I had spilled. I then climbed into my cockpit and started the engine up. The oil pressure came up immediately. That was a good sign. I shut the airplane down and we both looked inside the engine compartment for any leaks. It looked good, and there hadn’t even been any smoke.

We went back to the rear of the hangar and cut open my oil filter. To my surprise, I learned that the filter element was made out of paper. To my relief, the filter had not one speck of anything in it.

Grabbing my log books out of the airplane, I took them to Bill and he signed off the work we’d done. The airplane was good now for another 50 hours. The next 50 hours would put us over 1000 hours on this engine since it was lat rebuilt, and it was supposed to live only a maximum 2000 hour life before needing another. SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! Connie and I (especially I) needed to start saving NOW for that future expense! It might be arguable we’d keep the airplane that long; but better to be safe than sorry.

For the moment, though, I had more immediate concerns. I climbed back in the airplane, we said “goodbye”, and I started the Cheetah back up. Couldn’t help but glance at my oil pressure gauge a little more than usual as I ran through my checklists, taxied out, and completed the takeoff checklist. After getting clearance from the tower, I pushed the throttle forward and the Cheetah roared down runway 35 to lift off over the homes and shorelines of Galveston Bay and fly for, at least, another 50 hours.

Her oil was fresh, and its pressure was holding up just fine.

On some days, you can’t ask for any more than that.

The Reason Why

Lately, I’ve been questioning why my wife and I have signed up for so much risk by owning an airplane. There’s not one aspect of ownership that doesn’t involve risk. Flying involves physical, legal, and financial risks; not flying also involves financial risks to the airplane, and not inconsequential ones. Our airplane is hitting mid-life on its current engine; we’re only 1000 flight hours away from having to rebuild it and incurring the ten to fifteen thousand dollar expense (in 2007 dollars). That assumes, of course, that the engine makes it to its advertised TBO (Time Between Overhauls). Because of the poor cooling associated with the standard AA5X cowling, I understand it’s not usual to make it to TBO with performing a TOP overhaul in the interim. My mechanic quoted a TOP overhaul last year as $1500 per cylinder, making overhauling all four a $6000 project. I don’t have any more vehicles to sell to cover an expense like that, which is what I did to cover our first annual’s $6500 cost. If we have to do something like that again soon, I’m not sure how we'd cover it.

It also seems lately I’ve seen a fair share of engine problems out at our airfield, though at least one of them can be chalked up to pilot error. My buddy Jim’s Cessna 120’s engine failed to partial power not long after takeoff (when he was in the I crosswind) but he managed to get it back to the runway with good skill, favorable winds, and by chasing everyone out of the pattern to land downwind. Another Cherokee at the field lost power when it ran out of gas due to a crew taking off with adequate gas to perform their training mission but with a leaking underwing drain cock that failed to seat and bled down their gas in flight. Good piloting saved that one, though some of us are still scratching our heads wondering if the leak got worse after takeoff or the crew simply was complacent about the leak. No matter. I take the attitude that except for the grace of God, there go I. (You can bet us pilots who know of the incident are paying attention to whether our fuel drains are seating properly during the preflight.) Add to all this the fact that about fourteen months ago, when I was flying a Cessna 172 in a flying club, the flight immediately after mine was aborted in the air after the engine swallowed a valve; and that my own Cheetah's engine “burped” during a flight back from Missouri last month (cause unknown), and you can understand why I’m a bit sensitive to the risk of an engine failure right at this moment. Sometimes I just gotta wonder why I slap my butt into the frail airframe of a single engine airplane, push the throttle forward, and leap into the sky.

Never mind doing that at night, like I did last night. I hadn’t flown at night for a few weeks, and even that entailed only about a half hour of exposure to the dark at the end of a Missouri return. (I learned how easy it is to lose your bearings in the dark even with an area one knows, but that’s a story for another time.) On this night, I had decided to take care of my required "three take-off’s and landings to a full stop" that allows me to carry passengers in the dark for the next ninety days.

I drove out to the airport about six thirty p.m., not quite an hour after the sun had gone down, after stopping at McDonald’s to get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and no pickles. Sitting out in the car, I ate my burger and drank a small Sprite-that-was-supposed-to-be-a-Diet-Coke as I studied the airplane’s teardrop and winged form, glowing small and ghostly white from a full moon already hanging overhead.

Once finished and out of the car, I walked through the clean, cold air over to her, sitting my flight bag down on the black no-slip tab on her wing. Stepping up on the wing, I unlocked the canopy and slid it back, letting myself step into the cockpit and lower into the pilot’s seat. I removed the various locks that protect the airplane from wind and theft and then proceeded to set up the cockpit for flight. Headset, Push-to-talk switch, Checklist, VFR Terminal Area Chart, and my kneeboard conspired to make me ready. Fetching a small flashlight and my gas checker out of the flight bag, I stepped out of the cockpit and walked around the back side of the left wing to continue slowly around her, my flashlight illuminating this and that, my hands opening and closing panels as needed to complete a preflight. Noting I had full fuel tanks and had found nothing askew, I walked in front of the airplane and, grabbing the propeller blades at their hubs, pulled the airplane to the edge of the small “driveway” out of my “carport”, the covered tie-down that serves as my airplane’s hangar. After stopping her, I hopped back into the cockpit, strapped in, and started down the Before Start Checklist.

Mags to Left, three shots of primer, hit and hold the Start button, and the engine chugged but didn’t start. I worked the throttle as I cracked it again to help it out, but nothing happened...until the exact instant I released the Start button to give the starter a rest. To my surprise, the engine fired and started. I switched the Mags to Both and gave it just a touch of throttle to help it out,and turned on lights inside and out. My airplane was now alive! I closed the canopy to cut the noise and shield myself from the cold air blowing with a wind chill that is equates to eighteen degree weather.

The automated voice that belays the airport weather over the radio reported the winds, which had been out of the north all day, as calm. I set the altimeter to 30.22 as it also dictated and checked that the altimeter reading matched the sea level elevation of the airport. Turning the landing light on, I pushed the throttle forward, feeling the airplane both roll and slide across the muddy, water-logged grass. A pop on the right brake twisted the airplane right onto an asphalt taxiway, another left straightened it out again, and I make my way up onto the airport ramp.

Two shadowy figures crossed just slightly to my right as I taxied forward passing hangars and heading toward two lines of facing aircraft. They were pilots who had just landed on runway 32, and they were walking slowly toward the flying club’s clubhouse. The winds were calm, and the "no-wind" runway is 14, so I followed the yellow line that turned left, splitting two lanes of parked airplanes. My airplane is the only one awake, loping past its sleeping compatriots like a horse out of the barn. We were creeping into the night to run away. Past the airplanes, the gas pump, and the Terminal building we went, no one there but us. The radio was dead silent, making me key the mike to see if the damn thing is working. I hear a small click telling me the transmitter turned on, so I’m content to call the radio "on" and relieve my paranoia.

Pulling into a small ramp at the south end of the Terminal area, I stopped the Cheetah and ran her though her Pre-TakeOff Checklist. Running the engine up, I checked the mags. The drops were fine but the left one sputterd a bit, so I ran the engine up to 2000 RPM, leaned the mixture until I see the RPM begin to drop and then enrichened it a little while holding the brakes tight for about twenty seconds while the engine ran, burning fire inside its heart. Dropping the engine RPM down to 1800, moved the Mixture to Full Rich and checked the mags again. They were good and smooth. The rest of the checks went smoothly; and once I was done, I turned on my landing light to show me the Yellow Brick Road to the end of runway 14. Oz. As I puttered along, I couldn't resist turning the landing light off for a second to see what it would be like to taxi without it. I could still see pretty well, but I turned the light back on and continued on down.

At the end of the taxiway, on the radio I called other pilots who might be coming in that I’m departing as I pushed the throttle forward and eased past the white stripes marking the near end of the runway. I turned the airplane toward the runway’s center as I pushed the throttle in all the way. The engine roared, and we accelerated, my feet working back and forth to hold us on centerline as the airspeed indicator makes it to 60. I pulled gently back on the yoke, the nose rotated up, and suddenly we lifted away, climbing into the night sky.

The radio is still quiet, making me wonder if I am the only small plane and pilot in the sky. To my left, the multi-colored lights of the homes and businesses of Friendswood scattered out and dropped very slowly away. Banking the airplane slightly left, I called “departing southeast” on the radio as my eyes began to see the beauty of the cities, cars, sky and ground below. Almost everything has some definition in the pale moonlight, and the lights down there make it seem like Christmas is still here, even though I know it has come and gone. Climbing to fifteen hundred feet, I leveled out. To my left was the flashing beacon and empty space that is Ellington Field. Ahead of the nose, I could see the homes marking and making League City, the moving lights of individual cars carrying their human somewhere, and beyond, the moonlight streaking the water of Galveston Bay. The air was smooth and cold and clear. I was riding a winged and magic carpet, and I could see tens of miles in every direction, more than the mortal humans on the ground could comprehend. And, for an instant, I understood. This was why we take the risks, why we endure the financial and physical and even emotional hardships that flying and aircraft ownership impose.

There is only one way to experience the peace and beauty one can find in the air.

You must be there.