Category Archives: flying

Pitch Perfect

It’s a normal smoggy day at Chino airport. I’ve just taken off with my student, Stan, whom I’m checking out in his two-seater, fabric-covered Taylorcraft. The takeoff goes normally but after we level off and pick up speed, Stan can’t keep the plane’s nose down.

“Trim forward, Stan.”

“I am.”

“Trim down more.”

“I am!”

The plane is still pitching up violently, threatening to stall. I see Stan straining to push the control wheel forward, but it isn’t helping. What’s wrong?

I’m studying anthropology at Cal State Fullerton and need a little extra cash so when Hank Bradford lures me over to Chino with the promise, “I’ll give you a twin-engine checkout in the Aero Commander” (a larger twin-engine plane), I jump at the chance to work for United California Aviation—the outsize name for Hank’s dubious fixed-base operation. UCA consists of an office, a small workroom with a picture of a naked woman hanging on the wall and a few hundred square feet claimed from the vast and empty adjoining hangar. Hank has opened a small café and offers hamburgers to a few army personnel temporarily stationed here. He acts as a maître d, circulating through the room chatting up the troops as he follows a waitress around, pretending to grab her hips.

I never see the promised Aero Commander. Rather, I end up doing routine maintenance on random aircraft that show up. No tools available—I bring my own. But one day I arrive at work about noon on a Thursday and Hank says, “Wanna’ take the Apache and fly some fishermen down to Baja for the weekend?” Immediately I say yes, even though I’ll miss a day of my classes and even though I have little time to prepare for the flight. But you never turn down a chance to fly a multiengine plane. A fun weekend.

Now today I’m still trying to figure out why Stan can’t control his airplane. “Stan! Give me the wheel.” I grab the dual control wheel and it just about hits me in the face! The airplane is still trying mightily to pitch up. If the nose rises a bit more, the airplane will stall and plummet us to the ground. I barely keep it level, forcing the control wheel forward. “Stan, we have to turn back to the airport; something’s wrong. I’ll land the plane because I don’t know how it’ll react if we slow up.” I hold forward pressure on the wheel all the way through the landing.

I walk around the plane, suspecting something’s wrong with the elevator control system, those “flippers” at the tail that pitch the airplane up or down but they seem to be operating normally.

Then I notice the small trim tab hinged at the rear of one of the elevator surfaces. This tiny deflector moves the larger elevators up or down. So I yell to Stan who is still in the cockpit, “Stan; turn the trim tab crank counterclockwise.” As Stan turns the crank to lower the nose, I see the trim tab moving downward. In flight, this would force the elevator up, which would pitch the nose up­—the opposite of how it’s supposed to work. The mechanic (probably my boss, Hank) had hooked up the trim tab control cable backwards! “Stan; we’re done flying until I get this control fixed!”

This flight could have been a disaster—I hate to think what would have happened if Stan had been flying without an instructor. In the future I determine that after maintenance is done on an airplane I need to perform a more thorough preflight check—including the trim tab.

Pitch Perfect

A normal smoggy day at Chino airport. I’d just taken off with my student, Stan, whom I was checking out in the Taylorcraft.

The takeoff was normal, but after we leveled off, Stan was having trouble keeping the plane’s nose down. This was normal, since our increasing speed tended to force the nose up.

“Trim the nose down, Stan.”

“I am trimming down.”

“Trim down more.”

“I am!”

“Give me the wheel.”

I grabbed the dual control wheel and it just about hit me in the face! The airplane was trying mightily to pitch up. If the nose had risen a bit more, the airplane would have stalled and plummeted toward the ground. I could barely keep it level by forcing the control wheel forward. “Stan, we need to turn back to the airport; something’s wrong.” I said.  Let me land the plane because we don’t know how it will react.”

I held forward pressure on the wheel all the way to landing, then jumped out and walked around to the tail. What was I looking for? The horizontal tail surface of the aircraft has two moveable parts—elevator and trim tab. The elevator moves up and down in flight, causing the airplane to pitch up or pitch down.

On the back of the elevator is a tiny trim tab operated by a trim tab wheel in the cockpit. Rolling the wheel back causes the trim tab to turn down into the slipstream (the wind that flows past the airplane in flight). This pushes the whole elevator up, causing the nose of the plane to pitch up. When the tab is turned up, the elevator is pushed down, causing the nose to pitch down.

So I yelled to Stan who was still in the cockpit, “Stan; roll the trim wheel forward.” He rolled. I carefully observed the trim tab back at the tail. As Stan rolled the wheel forward, the trim tab was turning downwards! In flight, this would force the elevator up, which would pitch the nose up, the opposite of how it was supposed to work. The mechanic (probably my boss) had hooked up the trim control cable backwards! “We can’t fly this airplane until we get this control fixed!” I told Stan.

You don’t normally check the trim tab movement when preflighting an airplane. But this mistake could have been disastrous. I hate to think if Stan had been flying without an instructor.

We Tell Ourselves Lies

The story of Bernice

Why is it so hard to tell ourselves the truth? During my Cal State Fullerton days I met Bernice—attractive, available and interested. After our first date she said, “I never know how to say ‘thank you.’” On the next few dates she found out. Hugs escalated to kisses and eventually to long couch sessions.

It felt good but I was puzzled. I assumed women were the sexual gatekeepers and that most women had sturdy boundaries, But Bernice seemed to have none. Instead, I felt her drawing me in. I felt the urge to embrace longer, to move faster, further. I began having fantasy dreams. My conscience told me God disapproved. I could not justify a sexual relationship, even to myself. I knew I needed to deescalate. But instead, I began working on my self-deception (SD) project—lying to myself. I told Bernice I loved her. Maybe I thought that telling her would make it so, or that the declaration would justify my passions.

I told myself that she was dialing up our passion, not I; that I wasn’t forcing her into anything; that we would marry (eventually, maybe?). That I was under complete control and could stop at any point. That premarital sex wasn’t so bad. That God would forgive me (later). But lust is like scratching a scab. Scratching feels good. Soon you’re compelled to scratch, obsessed with scratching, even if it gets bloody.

What was this doing to her? I wasn’t even thinking about how our passions might affect Bernice. Later, after she started dating someone else, she came to me teary-eyed and said, “I can’t stop!” My behavior had clearly perforated her already porous boundaries.

All the while the voice of conscience was telling me: “You’re headed for something you know is wrong. You must respect her, regardless of how she behaves. You aren’t in love; just in lust.” Eventually, conscience won out, or more accurately, a loving God restrained me from doing something stupid. Later years have only confirmed my gratitude to God that I turned away from my lustful promptings. But the point is, I almost talked myself into it. I just about bought the flawed logic. I just about violated a deeper good in favor of a lesser. My self-deceived reasoning almost led me to disaster.

Although my tryst with Bernice did not rise to the level of “petting” (as our elders called it), sexual fantasies still disturb me today. A few years ago I was alone in my motel room, four thousand miles from home. Flipping through the TV channels, I came across a pornographic movie. I quickly kept flipping (but memorized the number so I could avoid it). I approached the same channel again and thought I’d better verify that it was the porn channel (so I could avoid it). Then I got hooked. I told myself I was powerless to change channels.

Classic self-deception—I talked myself into a lie so that I could fulfill an intense desire that would work against my long-term interests. The experience shook me. Immediately afterward I repented and my resolve stiffened. But why did I even give myself permission?

Self-deception (SD) is so common. People say all the time—“I know I shouldn’t but… It’s only this one time… I’ll quit tomorrow…. Rules are for other people… I can drive over the speed limit because I’m more skillful (or intelligent)… It won’t hurt anybody….”

Even statisticians play the lottery and believe they’ll win, although they know that statistically they’ll lose money. People say “I’ll stop smoking tomorrow,” and mean it, but no real intention, no plan, and the next day, the conviction fades.

What is SD anyway? It seems contradictory—believing two opposite things at the same time. It’s distinct from other deceptions because in SD, the deceived and the deceiver are one person. It’s not just bad judgment or ignorance, because in those, there’s no deceiver involved. It’s not a mental illness, unless you allow that all people on the planet are mentally ill.

In SD, you yourself are both the deceiver and the deceived. You give yourself permission to do something that your “better angels” knows is wrong. You privilege the immediate over the future, the short-term over the long, the easy over the hard, your own needs over those of others. You deceive yourself when you start acting on the lies you tell yourself, lies you know aren’t true.

Why I eat junk food

Like most people, I have two contradictory desires: to satisfy my food cravings and to live a heathy, long life.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t hear much about nutrition. I knew I needed Vitamin D (milk) and I knew I needed protein. That was about it. I was skinny, so I didn’t worry about getting fat.

Every weekday while I was waiting to pick up my papers at the Orange Daily News, I would walk next door, put a dime in the pop machine (it was a long time ago), and get a cold bottle of Coke. Then on the way to my paper route I would stop at the gas station and buy a Heath candy bar. I ate all the dessert I could get hold of. Once I bought a quarter pound of fudge, took a chaste bite, and then devoured the whooole thing in ten minutes [for your ears, only—it was totally worth it]. Even today, I favor ice cream and chocolate over leafy vegetables, carrots, peas, and green beans.

My wife, the voice of reason, fights a faithful but futile battle against my cravings. She cooks healthy meals even though I still major on desserts. She says, “I give up! Eat what you want. But don’t expect me to take care of you when you get sick” (an empty threat). She’s already picked out my tombstone epitaph: “I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Despite all I’ve learned about nutrition, despite the scientific evidence, despite my wife’s rational suggestions, I still eat junk food.

There’s a reason I eat this way—I’m an SD expert. I tell myself: “I eat better than my friends. I’ll eat better next week. I know a guy who ate junk food and lived into his 90s. Just this one time. I’ll take just one piece.”

Do I believe these lies? Well, it’s complicated. The best explanation is that I believe the lie now. (Why spoil a great experience!) Then, just after eating, I can repent and listen to the voice of reason. This allows me to preserve my self-respect, to see myself as a rational, disciplined person. But of course, my repentance is a lie also and my fake resolve doesn’t motivate me to change my behavior.

SD is always motivated—you practice SD because you want something. What you want is to have your cake and eat it too—to act on one conviction that contradicts a different conviction. You want to enjoy a delicious taste, avoid the hard choice, satisfy an immediate desire, or give yourself permission to violate a moral code. You have reasons to deceive yourself.

What’s wrong with a little SD?

Why worry about a little innocent SD? Because it’s not innocent. The stories above show how SD can be dangerous, or deadly. SD promotes lazy, habitual behavior that may lead to addiction. It represents a divided care for yourself, and works against a healthy, integrated personhood. Most serious, it tempts you to “self-divinize”— to substitute your own flawed judgment for God’s.

SD works because of our compartmentalized brains. Each of us has a “reptile” brain—the amygdala—older, simpler and associated with instinctual behavior such as fight or flight. In addition we have a neocortex (“new brain”) that is rational and deliberating—the part of our brain that says, “Wait a minute—will this serve your long-term interest?” We can call the amygdala “Junior,” and the neocortex “Mother.” Junior does what he wants to do; Mother does what she plans to do. SD occurs when we let Junior bully Mother.

 The story of the city in a bowl

Looking back, I recognize that my flying days produced the most vivid examples of SD. I based in San Cristobal where we flew the Mission Aviation Fellowship plane out to little airstrips across southern Mexico.

San Cristobal de Las Casas (in Chiapas State, Mexico) lies in a huge bowl circled by towering peaks. All the rainwater courses down a huge, natural ground hole at one end of the bowl.

One day, I’m stuffing a missionary family and their belongings into the small Cessna 180. They’re traveling from Yaxoquintelà (a jungle training camp for Wycliffe Missionaries) back to San Cristobal. A norther has blown in, and clouds lie like cotton balls over the mountains and down into the valleys, so I’m flying just below the clouds at 8,000 feet, following the Comitán road. The road winds through a narrow pass and then plunges down into the San Cristobal bowl.

The afternoon light fades as I eye the narrow pass through the blurry rain. I see that I could barely slip through the pass clear of clouds. Or, we could turn around now and head to nearby Tuxla Gutierrez, a large town beyond the mountains with a good airport, lights, and good weather. At this point, I know a few things: a) We’re at high altitude and engine performance is reduced. b) Transiting the pass is a high-risk operation, and who knows the weather conditions in the bowl? c) I’m a good pilot, better than average. d) If we landed in Tuxla, we’d have to find overnight lodging. Suddenly I resolve to try getting through to San Cristobal. We high-jump the pass and dive into the bowl.

Except now I can’t see the ground. There’s no opening ahead, just solid clouds and rain, even though the airstrip is only five miles away. It would be deadly trying to climb out through the clouds with mountains all around. I must turn around and go back through the pass. But we’re in a narrow canyon and we’re well below the bowl rim. And is the Comitán pass behind us still open?

I pull on flaps to shorten our turn radius and make a steep bank left, narrowly clearing the encircling clouds. But now I’m looking at the high pass directly in front and above me. At best angle of climb we barely squeak out over the rim. Then we circle outside the bowl to the right, find a crack in the clouds, and descend to land in San Cristobal just at dusk.

In flying, as in so many other endeavors, it’s amazing how your vision and judgment clarifies after you’re back home sitting in your easy chair. You can call it cockpit judgment vs. armchair judgment. Safely at home, I reflect on the irony. In bad weather, when you make a good decision and return to your departure airport or divert to another airport, your passengers criticize and grumble and you feel like a failure. If you make a bad decision and forge ahead, the passengers praise you for your amazing piloting skills. And you feel good that you’ve accomplished your mission! But now I reminded myself of certain fatality statistics in similar circumstances. I knew I made a bad decision, and I felt guilty. Of course, my San Cristobal passengers didn’t know that I had made a foolish decision—to continue through a cloudy mountain pass at dusk.

I repented, and vowed never to do that again. But of course I did do similar things again, all employing sturdy rationales. This is classic SD, built on the lie that I am an exceptional pilot and can beat the odds. But in truth, the exceptional pilot would have put prudence and passenger safety over convenience. It’s true: there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.

Why tell myself lies? These lies arise out of a mental “board of directors.” SD occurs when one mouthy, loud, ignorant board member trumps all the other members and argues for the act. I let mouthy Junior (the reptile brain) drown out Mother’s voice (the more rational neocortex). I, the chair of the board, found myself trying to persuade Mother to accept Junior’s shortsighted, dangerous suggestion.

SD comes in many guises: overconfidence; seeking immediate rather than long-term gratification; choosing the easier, rather than the better action. “Rationalization” means constructing a plausible reason for doing something I shouldn’t do.

One common type of SD discounts probability statistics. People make good yes or no choices, but if an outcome is only probable, they make poor choices. For example people might say, “I could win the lottery!” “It can’t happen to me,” “I drove 30 miles over the speed limit and got away with it.”

The simplest airplane to fly

One day I jumped into an Ercoupe (“the simplest airplane there is to fly”), a plane I’d never flown before. I did a takeoff and landing in 50 mph winds, despite knowing that I should have gotten a thorough checkout before flying that plane. I just about wrapped it up in a little aluminum ball.

In Amarillo, Texas, I took three passengers on a sightseeing flight in a twin-engine Cessna 310, and decided to do a practice shutdown of one engine. Bad judgment doing this with passengers and I also used wrong procedure. The engine did not immediately restart, and we almost ended up landing in the weeds.

A different time (in Venezuela), I crammed seven small schoolchildren into the MAF Cessna 185 and leaded for Tama Tama, an hour away through heavy clouds. We flew blind for thirty minutes, and when we broke out I saw rain and lightning ahead. We were low on fuel, and I should have diverted to Santa Barbara, but that would have meant overnighting with these children on a remote, abandoned airstrip. So I grabbed the control wheel with my sweaty palms and flew through the rain and storm. Flying only 200 feet above the curving Orinoco River, we pushed ahead until I glimpsed Tama Tama airstrip through the bleary windshield. If I had failed to find Tama Tama, I would have had insufficient fuel to fly back to Santa Barbara.

What were the lies I was telling myself? In the Ercoupe incident, I convinced myself I was an expert pilot who could safely fly a strange airplane in high winds without a thorough checkout. In the 310, I convinced myself I knew emergency procedures well enough that I could safely stop and restart an engine, even though I had very few hours of experience in the airplane. I didn’t know what I didn’t know until it was too late to learn it. In the Cessna 185, I convinced myself that risking fuel exhaustion over a hostile jungle was more acceptable than the prospect of spending the night at a strange, abandoned airport with seven young children—I chose convenience over safety.

How tell yourself the truth?

If self-deception is so common, if it is corrosive and harmful, how do you avoid its traps?

You should begin by naming the deception; stripping it bare it so you can see it as it is. You must tell yourself the truth. For Bernice, above, I should have told myself the truth—that I did not love her.

Another good idea—when you fly (or drive), ask yourself, “What are the risk factors on this trip?” (bad weather, illness, nighttime, distractions, etc.) Tell yourself the truth about the risks.

You must prepare your defenses against SD ahead of time. Before I fly, I make a “Go-No Go” list, specifying the conditions under which I will cancel the trip. I establish rules about my health (exhaustion, illness, anger), airplane condition (rough engine, malfunctioning instruments, quantity of fuel), and weather conditions (e.g., demanding a cloud forecast that is scattered but not broken or overcast). If my neocortex creates these clear rules ahead of time, I’m less likely to violate them when the pressure is on. After making these checklists, it’s good to over-train—practice procedures you already know, so that in an emergency you’re more likely to do the right thing.

You need “accountability partners,” people who will tell you the truth. For instance, I promise my pilot friends that I will confess to them my safety violations—and let them scold me. When flying, I can ask myself, “What would my pilot friend Sam do in this situation?” We need accountability partners.

Beyond self-discipline and accountability groups, I can embrace my true identity in God. As the poet says, “Man [Mortals] cannot name himself. He waits for God, or Satan, to tell him who he is.”

How beautiful to exchange a distorted view of oneself for a godly view. Christian conversion means rejecting SD and letting God define me. I can confess sin and pray for forgiveness, for insight and discipline. I can see the world clearly with a God-s-eye view. This is the best antidote for SD.

 A final story—fuel valve trouble

When I was in Honduras, Paul, our program manager, asked me to fly the Piper Pacer—a nasty little fabric-covered plane that drops like a rock when you pull back the power and prefers going down the runway tail-first. I’d never flown a Pacer before so I assumed I’d get a thorough checkout. But Paul said, “Simple airplane. Just take ‘er out and make several practice landings. You’ll be fine.” I was too proud to admit I needed a thorough checkout. Plus, the flight was today and it was urgent—a sick patient needed to be flown to the hospital. So I quieted Mother’s voice in my head and listened to Junior. I told myself: Simple airplane. I’m experienced and highly-skilled. No problem.

But on the return flight I switched to the right fuel tank and the engine quit! Was the valve broken? The fuel line clogged? I switched back to left tank; the engine roared to life. But I wasn’t certain I had enough fuel to make it back on only left tank. I called base and said I was going to divert and land nearby and please bring fuel out to me. John, my fellow pilot, said, “Aw, you’ll have enough fuel—just come on in.” John’s confidence (how did he know?) and Junior’s voice in my head encouraged me to “come on in.” I did and landed with minimal fuel.

Then I checked the fuel valve, located down by my left knee. I noticed that you turn the valve left for Right Tank, straight up for Left Tank, and to the right for Off. I had mistakenly turned the fuel valve to Off!

No checkout. Didn’t read the manual. Bad judgment. Pride. Hurry. Classic SD.

Self-deception is common but subtle and has many complex causes. We can practice raising our consciousness about its dangers, we can make good decisions ahead of time and stick to them, and we can create accountability partners to check our bad judgment. And finally, we can know that we if we humble ourselves, God will lead us into truth.

Muleticos: A graceful disaster

In Thee we trust, whate’er befall;
Thy sea is great, our boats are small.

—Henry van Dyke, from “O Maker of the Mighty Deep”

I see Muleticos airstrip appear from behind a hill—my last stop for the day. I test the brake pedals—they’re firm. Here in northwest Colombia the tiny grass airstrips dotting the landscape appear more like pastures than runways. Airstrips most pilots would eschew. Turns out, I should have eschewed Muleticos that day.

I remember Barbara and I and our three-year-old Kimberly flying into Barranquilla, Colombia where our new coworkers, Bill and Carole Clapp, meet us at the airport. On the long bus ride down to our new home in Monterìa, the blacktop undulates in the heat. I’m fatigued, pensive and plagued with doubts. Have we made the right decision to come to Colombia?

Bill, the great pilot and genius mechanic. He’s been with Mission Aviation Fellowship for several years. Some swim; he walks on water. Thirtyish, he’s slightly built with sandy hair and comes equipped with a can-do attitude. In his orientation, I don’t learn much from him about the people, culture or the long-standing Colombian civil war. He focuses on the machine we fly and the tiny airstrips we service. It is as if we live in our own mechanical world, insulated from everything around us. When he checks the oil, he wipes the dipstick off in the crook of his knee and says, “Just don’t let your wife catch you doing that.” He reminds me, “Bush flying isn’t safe, it’s dangerous—you gotta constantly manage the risks. Once a kid rammed a stick in my elevator hinges. Another time a drunk climbed up on the back of the fuselage just as I was about to take off.”

Knowing these risks, MAF fields some of the best bush pilots in the world. Some fly on skis in the snows of Nepal; others fly over the jungles of Brazil. In its first twenty-five years, MAF flew thousands of missions around the world with no fatal accidents. I began my flying knowing all men are mortal, but I somehow assumed we MAF pilots were an exception. And yet, shortly after I started my Mexico tour, George Raney crashed in New Guinea. A year later, Don Roberson crashed in Venezuela after an in-flight fire. Paul, my chief pilot and good friend in Honduras, ran into a mountain. So much for immortality. As I would fly over the vast jungles sustained only by a thin aluminum wing and a single propeller, I realized that I faced the same risks that had overwhelmed each of my friends.

Here in sparsely populated Northwest Colombia, no electronic navigation aids guide you so we fly mainly by compass and clock, trying to identify farmsteads, dirt roads and low hills. Crude homemade windsocks at some of the strips signal the wind’s direction and velocity. Bill says, “Always fly over first and check for people, animals, tools or debris on the airstrip.” After several orientation flights, he releases me on my own.

Today, like every day, I strap the airplane to my back and begin to-ing and fro-ing between Betania, San Pedro, Tierra Alta, Saiza and Nazaret, each flight taking less than thirty minutes. I notice that I’m flying the approaches just a tad faster than I did in my previous tour in Venezuela, touching down a little later and burning up a bit more strip before stopping—the price of taking two years off of flying. It’s late afternoon. I’m tired, sweaty and ready to be done for the day. I head for Muleticos with three people aboard including Adalberto, the hacienda owner. After Muleticos I can return home.

I circle over the 350-meter strip; it’s seems clear. Adalberto maintains the airstrip for the village because it connects him to the outside world where the paved road begins. Bill had told me, “Look how the strip here is fenced in. But those holes in the fence allow people and animals to cross. Always circle first and gun the engine. People will hear the plane and keep clear. You’ve got lots of room, but you can’t takeoff to the west. You would splat against that little hill, which would be counterproductive. You’ve got to land west and takeoff east.”

We bank to land to the west, steadily losing altitude. There’s not much wind. I’m glad that our Cessna 180 has a Robertson conversion—drooping ailerons and specially modified wings that give it a lower stalling speed and shorter landing roll.

I peg the airspeed at 55 mph and watch the boundary fence grow larger. I’m in the groove, staring at my touchdown point—a single tuft of grass. If the tuft moves up the windshield, I add power; if it moves down, I throttle back.

When we’re a thousand feet out, I notice the airstrip weeds standing as high as the top of the plane’s wheels. Too low now for a go-around—we’re committed to land.

I cross the fence and am flaring when out of the corner of my eye I see two black pigs running across the foot trail. The left landing gear shudders when it rips one pig in half, then the other—thunk, thunk!

I jam on the brakes. The right brake grabs, but the left brake pedal sinks to the floor. The collision must have severed the brake line! In tailwheel planes like this Cessna 180, if you swerve too much, the nose and tail will switch places. When we lurch right, I release the brake and the plane straightens, but the far fence looms large in the windshield and I’m alarmed to see several people hanging over it. I brake again and the plane again swerves right. I release the brake and the plane straightens. We’re running out of strip but still going 30 mph. I brake again, hard. The plane pivots right. I’ve lost all control now and I feel like I’m watching a slow-motion movie. We crash through the side fence and plow into a six-inch tree trunk.

As we slide to a stop, I yell, “Salgan todos ya!” (Everybody out now!) My passengers scramble out of the plane. I’m surprised at my first thought—Good; I won’t have to make any more flights today. I realize I’m completely drained.

We inspect the plane. It rests inert on its crippled left wing like a wounded insect. I smell aviation fuel, and ask someone to put a bucket under the dripping tank vent. The left landing gear lies curled back under the fuselage, tethered only by the brake line. The crash has severed the left wing strut. The dogs have carried the dead pigs away.

Curious campesinos gather around. “Hermano, will the plane fly tomorrow?”

“No.”

I’m barely able to communicate by HF radio with the distant control tower in Montería—”We’ve crashed here in Muleticos. Please phone my wife and tell her we’re all right. I’ll come out overland tomorrow.”

The local Christian brothers feed me a supper of rice and beans. It lies tasteless in my mouth. I feel weak, despondent. How will we ever repair the plane? I sink exhausted into my hammock and immediately fall asleep.

The next morning I sit astride a mule on the long, enervating trip home, my head down, one hand on the reins and the other balancing the plane’s battery on the mule’s neck. It hasn’t rained, and I choke on the dust swirling around my face. The mule’s sweat smells and the saddle chafes. Finally, we reach a waiting Land Rover and continue our journey over dirt roads that pass through many corral gates.

Long after dark I arrive home in Monterìa unshaven, covered with sweat and dirt, teared up and penitential. Barbara gives me a great hug at our door. I tell her, “I broke the airplane!” She reminds me of the many things I should be thankful for. The plane, completely out of control, miraculously avoided the people lining the fence. No one was injured. The plane is repairable. But how little gratitude I feel at that moment!

The next day I tell Bill. “The left strut’s severed; it’s useless. And the left landing gear’s broken off.”

Bill has restored whole airplanes in his home basement. Several times MAF has sent him to the other side of the world to help rebuild crashed airplanes. He decides we should go back immediately and patch the plane together, assuring me, “We’ll order a new strut down from the States.”

After another Land Rover and muleback journey we arrive at the airstrip where Bill casts an eye on the damaged plane. He minimizes the fact that the rear wing spar has two right-angle bends in it and enlists several men to help us lift the crippled left wing and shove a wooden rice-pounding mortar under the belly to support the plane. A donkey with half-closed eyes scratches his behind against one of the airstrip markers and dumps a brown dollop on the grass. I think, He never has to worry about broken machinery.

We work two days. Bill hacksaws off the damaged part of the strut and asks one of the campesinos to go find a good hardwood tree. The man soon returns with a block of hardwood and using his machete, deftly fashions it to fit inside the severed strut stub. Bill’s tools seem a natural extension of his arms and fingers—he expertly attaches the wood splint with big PK screws. The broken landing gearbox presents the most complex problem. Bill says, “We need an electric drill to remove the large, severed rivets.” But no electricity.

Adalberto says, “I’ll bring my light plant over from the hacienda to run your drill.” Soon a donkey shows up with the light plant balanced on his back. We drill out the rivets in the landing gear attach bracket and install large bolts.

After much patching up of the airplane, we finally start the engine. At 1800 rpm the whole airplane shakes. The bent prop is an inch out of track! We use a wooden prybar to attempt to pull the blade back into alignment, but it doesn’t budge. And yet Bill, ever the can-do optimist, says, “It’ll push air fine. We just won’t fly it at 1800 rpm.”

The airplane now stands on its own two feet, the lower part of the left wing strut an unpainted hardwood stub. Large bolts secure the damaged landing gear to the fuselage. A mass of PK screws and duct tape strengthens the wrinkled aluminum at the end of the left wing. The controls seem to work fine.

Meanwhile, Aeronautica Civil has helicoptered in to inspect the crash. They give us permission to sacar la avioneta (take the airplane out). That means we can dislodge the plane from the bush and set it upright on the airstrip. But Bill employs a more liberal interpretation—“sacar la avioneta”means we can fly it to Bogotá! (He follows the dictum, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”) When he runs the engine up it seems fine. So he advances the throttle, hurtles down the strip, and soon disappears over the hill. I feel lonely, abandoned. All that remains is another day-long muleback and Land Rover trip home to Montería.

A few days after returning home, I fall ill with a rising, burning fever. When the fever breaks I’m covered with sweat, shivering with shuddering chills. Barbara piles on blankets, but they don’t warm. Then the fever rises again and the cycle repeats. I think, I have malaria. But after some blood tests the doctor declares, “You’ve got typhoid fever.”

I take antibiotics and lie in bed for one month, weak as a flaccid noodle, rehearsing the accident a thousand times. Should I have intentionally ground-looped? Pumped the brake more? It will be two months before the airplane returns to service. Yet I’m perversely cheered that my typhoid provides an excellent excuse not to help Bill with the airplane repairs in Bogotá. I eventually recover and we finish the repairs together.

Our months in Colombia stretch into three years. We suffer eight robberies. The bank forecloses on the owner of our rented house. We launch an abortive communal living experiment. A school bus backs into our Land Rover and then a loaded dump truck crashes into it with Barbara driving. Were we wrong to insist on going to Colombia instead of Nicaragua, where MAF assigned us? Was it a bad decision to land at Muleticos in the one-foot-high grass? Should I have tried to ground-loop the airplane?

Yet Colombia provides us many treasures. We encounter many memorable people—Mario, the pastor of the local church; Andrés, the agriculturalist who helps improve the campesinos’ cacao crops; Gregorio, the faithful pastor who carries in his pocket two letters of reference: one to the army and the other to the guerillas.

I eventually stop asking why the accident happened and start asking, “God, what do you have for me in this? How should I respond?” I realize that life is fecund, full of God-surprises. I’m thankful for Barbara’s faithful support and thankful for all the rare and wonderful experiences in Colombia. That’s why grace is called grace. Every curse becomes a blessing. No one was injured in the accident, I survived typhoid fever, and while in Montería we adopted two more precious children—Tim and Jennifer.

Colombia, I embrace you. You’re a contradiction, a harsh teacher. But you’re also a vehicle of grace. I love the slightly-modified bumper sticker I’ve seen —“Grace Happens.”

WINGSPREAD Ezine for February, 2023


“Spreading your wings in a perplexing world”
February 2023                                                            James P. Hurd

Please forward and share this E-zine with anyone. Thank you.

Contents

  • Blessed Unbeliever release
  • Writer’s Corner
  • New story
  • This month’s puzzler
  • Wingspread Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

BLESSED UNBELIEVER is published!

In Blessed Unbeliever, Sean McIntosh has good reason to doubt his fundamentalist faith— he’s just lost his girlfriend and his life dream of aviation. But when he turns to unbelief, he finds it harder than he ever imagined—especially at Torrey Bible Institute! So he commits a secret act of blasphemy to convince himself he is an atheist. It’s a long journey back to his girlfriend, his life dream, and his faith. (Wipf and Stock, January 2023.)

Order:  https://wipfandstock.com/9781666756951/blessed-unbeliever/

Or, click HERE to view on Amazon.com  (Amazon also has an electronic Kindle version.)

Writers’ Corner

Word of the Month: ENDORSEMENT: A few sentences recommending a book—often found on the back cover.

Tip of the month: Normally, you do not use a comma if you’re joining two sentences:

Wrong: Bill went downtown, and Sally went to the country.

Correct: Bill went downtown and Sally went to the country.

Author of the month: IGNATIUS. A first century Christian bishop who, while on the way to Rome to die a martyr’s death, wrote a letter to Bishop Polycarp in which he speaks of the invisible God become visible. An early proclamation of the Christ.

Book of the month: CELTIC DAILY PRAYER. (Books I and II.) Northumbria Community. A marvelous book of scriptures and daily readings, including writings by Celtic Christians.

Immortal lines in movies. Eric contributed: “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then again, who does?” (one policeman to another in Blade Runner)

Yes, but why are you here?

New story: Chiapas Air Ambulance

https://jimhurd.com/2023/02/01/chiapas-air-ambulance/

We’re circling over Corralito, a remote airstrip in Chiapas State, Mexico. I check for animals on the strip and wonder if the injured Tzeltal Indian man is still alive. The tiny strip lies tucked in below a cornfield on a terraced hillside, so I need to approach around a low hill. At the last minute the airstrip appears in my windshield. We bank, line up with the strip and soon feel the long grass under our wheels as we taxi the red and white Cessna 180 over to where Mario lies inert on a stretcher with his tumid stomach bulging below his pulled-up shirt.

Antonio, his brother, stands by mute while another man talks to me in Spanish. “Capitán, Mario was feeding stalks into the trapiche sugar cane press when the horse’s bar turned and squeezed him against the press.” As we lay the injured man in the airplane, I think, he’s young; he has a good chance of pulling through. . . .  To read more, click above.

(Leave a comment on the website and share with others: https://jimhurd.com . Thanks.)

This month’s puzzler:

Drake, the head detective, has three candidates who’ve applied for an assistant detective job, so he decides to test them with a little quiz. “Look guys, there’s a crime that needs to be solved and there’s a clue in one of the public libraries in Bakersfield. The clue is stuck inside a book, between pages 165 and 166. The book was written by two famous brothers about cars.”

Two of the guys jump up and bolt out the door. The third guy just sits there. Drake says, “You got the job.” Why did he get the job? What did he know that the other two guys didn’t know?  Hint: an author might be more likely to get this puzzler. (Answer next month.)

Last month’s puzzler: Recall that Mrs. Simmons, the suburban housewife, was very fond of her mother-in-law. One morning after breakfast, she went shopping and then stopped as she often did, to have a mid-morning cup of coffee with the older woman. When Mrs. Simmons returned home, the first thing she saw was the grizzly remains of her husband . . .

Instead of calling a doctor or the police, she calmly went about her domestic chores. Why?

Answer: Walking in her door, Mrs. Simmons viewed the vase containing her husband’s cremains.

Subscribe free to this Ezine : 

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

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Wisdom

 Creative new words:   

Reintarnation (n.): coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Sarchasm (n.): the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Osteopornosis (n.): a degenerate disease

Decafhalon (n.): getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Beelzebug (n.): satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three a.m. and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): the color you turn when you discover only half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

Cashtration (n.): the act of buying a house that renders the subject financially impotent.

Intaxication (n.): euphoria at getting a tax refund, then realizing it was always your money anyway.

Karmageddon (n.): It’s like, when everybody is sending off these bad vibes, right? And then, like, the earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

I mean, you’ve got to be kidding.

Nine Important Facts to Remember as We Grow Older

#9. Death is the number one killer in the world.

#8. Life is sexually transmitted.

#7. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

#6. Men have two motivations: hunger and sex, and they can’t tell them apart. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.

#5. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

#4. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital, dying of nothing.

#3. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

#2. In the 60s, people took LSD to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.

#1. Life is like a jar of jalapeno peppers. What you do today may be a burning issue tomorrow.

Chiapas Air Ambulance

A repeat of a story blogged four years ago.

(Please share this story with others and “rate” it, below.)

We’re circling over Corralito, a remote airstrip in Chiapas State, Mexico. I check for animals on the strip and wonder if the injured Tzeltal Indian man is still alive. The tiny strip lies tucked in below a terraced cornfield on a hillside, so I need to approach around a low hill. At the last minute the airstrip appears in my windshield. We bank, line up with the strip and soon we feel the long grass under our wheels as we taxi the red and white Cessna 180 over to where Mario lies inert on a stretcher with his tumid stomach bulging below his pulled-up shirt.

Antonio, his brother, stands by mute while another man talks to me in Spanish. “Capitán, Mario was feeding stalks into the trapiche sugar cane press when the horse’s bar turned and squeezed him against the press.” As we lay the injured man in the airplane, I think, he’s young; he has a good chance of pulling through.

We depart Corralito for our home base. San Cristobal sits on the Pan American highway at an altitude of 7,200 feet, landlocked in the bottom of a vast basin with high mountains surrounding. Last night a squally norther blew across the region and its soggy remains still stick fast to the mountains. I test the entrails of the storm, probing one cloud-clogged pass after another. Finally I see a bit of light where the Comitán highway snakes between two hills. We high-jump the pass and then drop down into San Cristobal bowl. We can see the ground, but a solid wall of clouds plugs the path ahead! I bank steeply in the cramped head of the valley to reverse course, pulling on flaps to decrease our turning radius. We cut it so close it seems the wing seems buried halfway into the mountainside. Even using the best angle of climb we barely make it back through the narrow pass. I almost decide to divert to Tuxtla down in the valley, but at the last minute we slide through a hole along the rim and drop down into the huge San Cristobal bowl.

After landing in the late afternoon light, Chuck, the chief pilot, helps me load Mario into our old Chevy van to drive him to the small hospital for X-rays. The doctor tells us, “His interior organs are damaged. He needs to go to Tuxtla.”

We can’t fly at night; we must take him down the mountain in the van. So again we load him in and soon we’re on our way down the winding road. I think, Antonio must feel helpless in the hands of strangers who are struggling to save his brother’s life. I sit in the back next to the patient, feeling his heaving chest and listening to his hoarse, shallow breathing.

Then white foam bubbles out of his mouth—his lungs must be filling with fluid! I tell Chuck to drive faster. Then his breathing stops.

Antonio asks me in broken Spanish, “Will we get there in time?”

“We’ll try our best.”

Then I realize he’s gone. Antonio begs us to continue on to Tuxtla, but Chuck tells him, “There’s nothing we can do; it’s too late. We’ll have to go back to San Cristobal. If there’s still a little bit of life in him when we arrive, we’ll see the doctor again.”

We head back into town and rouse the doctor in the middle of the night to ask for a death certificate. He gives it to us, but we can’t quickly get the additional permit to transport the body back to Corralito so we’ll have to do it secretly. We drive into our darkened hangar and carefully lay the man onto the floor of the plane. His forlorn brother works to arrange the limp limbs before rigor mortis sets in. I get back to my hostel late, vomit, and then lie sleepless all night. It’s the first time I’ve seen a man die.

 

The next day at first light, Chuck takes off to fly the body back to Corralito. Antonio, dejected, sits in the copilot seat. I walk outside the hangar feeling the morning chill, my eyes following the plane as it climbs out over the valley—a tiny red dot silhouetted against the green mountains. I know something of grace in my life; I now pray grace for the dear, waiting family who must plan for a funeral. I trust that our work can continue here and that our flight service can help lighten the load for many of these Chiapanecos.

Click HERE to view Blessed Unbeliever on Amazon.com

Why Do I Make Stupid Mistakes?

I do stupid things. I know; everyone does. But I’ve elevated it to an art form. I turn on the wrong stove burner, miss doctor’s appointments, forget to put the car in park. I’ve locked my padlock key in the gym locker, forgotten to close the garage door for the night, forgotten to lock the house doors, showed up for a wedding, and later a funeral, on the wrong day, turned into the wrong side of a divided highway, backed into a light pole guywire.

Take when I crashed my 2011 Toyota Prius. The hybrid Prius is easy to get used to. But being a hybrid, the car runs on an engine plus an electric motor, and the car can be “on” even when the engine is stopped.

This day I pull up to our mailbox and put the four-way flashers on. When I jump out, the car begins rolling forward until I jump back in and slam on the brake.

Another time I’m waiting in line for gas and get out to see how many cars are ahead of me. The car starts rolling. I jump in and brake just before I slam into the car in front of me.

I tell myself, “I’ll never do that again.” But  I do, and the next time I pay for it.

I pull into my garage and sit there with my foot still on the brake, listening to MPR on the radio. The engine has stopped. After five minutes I turn the radio off and get out. The car then runs ahead into my workbench and damages the bumper ($700). Once again I’d forgotten to put the car in park and also forgotten to turn the car off.

Why did this happen? For starters, I was stopping the car for long periods of time keeping my foot on the brake without putting the car in park. Then I was taking my foot off the brake without checking that the car was in park or turned off.

Then there was the time I ran a red light. We are leaving my friend’s medical appointment in an unfamiliar part of the city. I’m talking animatedly about his procedure, our families, church. I approach an intersection, carefully look both ways—and then roll through a red light! I was focused on our conversation instead of focusing on my driving.

Worse when people do stupid stuff in the air. I flew a twin engine Cessna 310 to Amarillo, Texas, and offered to take three friends up for a ride. After we take off and climb to 4000 feet, I switch from using the main fuel tanks to the auxiliary tanks. Then I decide to practice flying single engine, so I shut down and feather the right engine. All goes well, but when I try to restart the engine it won’t start. I’m slowly losing altitude. I add full power on the good engine and frantically try to restart the dead engine. Nothing. Still losing altitude.

I decide we’ll have to land on a single engine, so I enter the Amarillo traffic pattern. We’re sinking lower and lower and I worry we won’t make the runway. I am so obsessed trying to restart the engine that I fail to check other systems.

I start my prelanding checklist and almost too late, I realize three things. I should never have practiced engine shutdown with a full load of passengers. The extended landing gear is creating more drag and causing our rapid descent.

Plus, I notice I’m still running on the aux fuel tanks. I switch the tanks back to mains and the engine immediately starts. Turns out that only the main fuel tanks have a boost pump to push the gas up to the engines. So you always need to start the engines on the main tank.

So how do I avoid doing stupid stuff? Problem is, there are different kinds of stupid mistakes. We can divide them into mistakes of knowledge, of skill, and of judgment.

First, mistakes of knowledge.  When I ran the red light, I didn’t know the streets and intersections well; first time I’d been in that area of town. In the Cessna 310 case, I did not know the fuel valve had to be on the main tank for starting.

Once I worked three hours trying to fix the brakes on my car. Then I checked out a YouTube video and was able to finish the job in twenty minutes. I needed more knowledge.

Flight instructing at Orange County Airport (now John Wayne Airport), my boss told me to test-fly a repaired plane. I jumped into the little Ercoupe (“so simple anyone can fly it”) and took off. When I came back to land in a roaring crosswind, I just about wrapped it up in a little aluminum ball. I should have known that the landing gear swivels so that the airplane can land with its nose cocked into the wind. I hadn’t even glanced at the owner’s manual. Lack of knowledge almost killed me.

Preplanning builds knowledge. Once we were driving with some friends to a small-town event in Wisconsin and ended up driving one hour north instead of south. We missed the event. If I would have studied  a map, we would have arrived in time.

Renting a car? Speeding away from the rental office at night, in the rain, in an unfamiliar car, in an unfamiliar city makes for some interesting (and dangerous) gymnastics in the first ten minutes. Always take the time to check out mirror-adjusts, emergency brake, headlights, four-ways, instrument panel, windshield wipers before moving.

A planning calendar, consulted weekly or even daily, means fewer missed appointments. In aviation, many (fatal) accidents could have been avoided if the pilot had checked the weather conditions beforehand. In flying, as in driving, you cannot do too much preplanning before you go.

Second, mistakes of skill. With my Prius, I had the knowledge; I knew how the hybrid system worked. But I had not practiced driving the car in various scenarios. I hadn’t developed good skills, such as never stopping without putting the car in park, or never removing my foot from the brake without checking to see if the car begins rolling.

In aviation, instructors talk about “overlearning”—continued practicing after you have learned a maneuver. Many states restrict driving privileges at night until the driver has practiced during the daytime.

My flight instructor would tell me, “Report incidents; prevent accidents.” Pay attention to incidents. An incident means you need more practice.

In aviation we practice emergency landings, flying with instrument failures, flying in unexpected weather. One should also (safely) practice emergencies in driving a car—loss of brakes, loss of steering, uncontrolled skids. Practice makes perfect.

Checklists build skill. With the Cessna 310, I failed to use the emergency checklist that would have reminded me to switch to main tanks for startup. Even in a car, it’s good to have a checklist. Checklists reduce the chance of missing something.

Be intentional. Do not rely on “muscle memory”—those automatic movements you are familiar with. Once my friend was flying, coming in to land. We were talking. He automatically reached down to pull on the carburetor heat but pulled the mixture instead. The engine stopped until I yelled, “mixture!”

A friend was transitioning to a new airplane. He landed, then reached over to raise the flaps—and pulled the landing gear up underneath him! In this new airplane, the landing gear lever was in the same location as the flaps lever in the previous plane.

Distractions. Managing distractions is a learned skill. After running the red light, I realized I needed to stop talking and concentrate on my driving in an unfamiliar environment. Other distractions: trying to talk to someone sitting in the back seat, juggling a soft drink and a sandwich while fiddling with the heater and the GPS. Answering your cellphone. Many pilots have the rule of a “sterile cockpit”: no talking or other distractions five minutes before takeoff or five minutes before landing. I try to have the rule of no distractions when driving through an intersection or even when driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood. For instance, I turn the radio off.

But mistakes of judgment are the most dangerous.

Risk factors. Years ago I drove through a construction zone at high speed—at night, in the rain, tired. I saw fast-moving bright lights, swerved, and barely missed a huge rumbling earthmover. I had underestimated the multiple risk factors: Night. Windy. Unfamiliar road. Construction zone. Exhausted driver. Any one of these is manageable but when they pile up, you’re in danger. For instance, you may be safe driving at night, but if it’s windy and the roads are icy, you’ve multiplied your risk factors. You must be conscious of how many risk factors you’re dealing with. Three strikes and you’re out.Good judgment demands assessing the risk factors.

Overconfidence. I ran the red light not only because I was distracted; I was also overconfident. Most people assume they’re better drivers than other people. We tend to overestimate our abilities—think about the sixteen-year-old boy who drives confidently at 100 mph in a residential neighborhood. The greatest judgment mistake is overconfidence.

So, how to avoid doing stupid things? Here’s a starter list:

  • Read the instructions (written or digital)
  • Plan carefully before executing a complex task
  • Consider a written checklist and follow it
  • Practice emergencies before you experience them
  • Take “incidents” very seriously, and change your behavior
  • Be intentional; don’t rely on muscle memory
  • Reduce distractions
  • Remember that multiple danger factors multiply risk
  • Avoid the trap of overconfidence

We all need to learn more, practice more, and use better judgment. I still do stupid things—just not quite as often.

Here’s to your increased safety!

WINGSPREAD Ezine for September, 2021


“Spreading your wings in a perplexing world”
September, 2021                                                                                             James P. Hurd

Please forward, and share this E-zine with anyone. Thank you.

Contents

  • New story
  • Puzzler of the month
  • Writer’s Corner
  • How to purchase Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying
  • Wingspread E-zine subscription information

*****************************************

 New story: “The Unfaithful Wife” 

The big tires skim the six-inch grass as we roll to a stop and taxi up to the houses. I open the side window and inhale the cooler air. Wally and Marg Jank are waiting with the patient, who lies on a stretcher.

Wally translates the loud chatter of the Yanomamo women standing around. “I wonder if she’ll die…? She’s so young… Her husband was really mad… How terrible he cut her leg off…! Serves her right for messing around with that other guy; I wonder what her husband will do to him…?” And sundry other helpful comments. The Yanomamo live in scattered shobonos of about 50 people each. Venezuelan healthcare does not extend to this remote location, and neither does law and order. The men frequently wage war on neighboring villages. The people go completely naked. The men expect their wives to obey them and to quickly accede to their demands . . .

To read more, click here:   https://jimhurd.com/2021/09/07/the-unfaithful-wife/

(*Please leave a comment on the website. Thanks.)

Puzzler for the month for September

The Loose Caboose ( from “Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers”):

Imagine, if you will, a long freight train. Like the kind you see out West with a couple hundred cars getting ready to leave the train yard. The engineer opens the throttle and the train starts to pull away from the yard. Then they realize that the caboose has a problem. The brake is frozen on one of the wheels of the caboose, and the wheel is being dragged so there are sparks and smoke. 

Someone standing there says, “Stop the train.” So, they manage to signal to the engineer, to stop the train. Well, they can’t fix it, so they just cut the caboose loose. They remove it and they give the engineer the go ahead. They wave him. You know. Go ahead. He gives it the throttle. The train doesn’t move.

He gives it more throttle, it doesn’t move. He gives it more and what’s happening in the train isn’t moving, but his wheels are spinning. There’s nothing wrong with any of the remaining cars and there’s nothing wrong with the engine, but there is something wrong with the engineer.

The question is why won’t the train move?
(Answer in next month’s Ezine)

Remember August’s puzzler: “The interchangeable part”?

What part of a car is virtually interchangeable with virtually any other car, whether it’s foreign or domestic?

Answer from Tom and Ray: 

Now, a lot of people wrote in and said things like, “the air in the tires,” “the oil in the crankcase.” But we said it was an actual mechanical part — not a fluid. We did research this for six or seven minutes.

The answer is the Schrader tire valve, the valve that goes in the stem. It’s called that because it’s made by the Schrader Company.

It’s a little check valve that keeps the air from coming out. It allows you to put air into the tire, yet it does not allow air to escape.

You can take that out of any car. In fact, we’ve taken them out of all the cars in the parking lot… and all the cars in the parking lot now have flat tires.

Writers’ Corner

Watch for my upcoming novel: East Into Unbelief (provisional title)

Sean loses his father, his best girlfriend, his life dream, and finally, his faith. How can he be a good atheist, especially when he’s stuck at Torrey Bible Institute? He can’t see it, but grace is coming . . .

Word of the Month:  Developmental editing [as opposed to line editing or proofreading]. A higher-level critique of your plot, character development, scenes.

Tip of the month: Was it Elmore Leonard who said that if you wish to be a published writer, you need to spend lots of time and lots of money? I just contracted for an editor’s critique of my novel’s first 50 pages, plus a critique of my synopsis.

Buy James Hurd’s Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying  How childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America—and Barbara. Buy it here:  https://jimhurd.com/home/  (or order it at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.) 

See pics here related to Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

Follow “james hurd” on Facebook, or “@hurdjp” on Twitter

Subscribe free to this Ezine  

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

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More paraprosdokians!

  • I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it. –Groucho Marx
  • He taught me housekeeping; when I divorce, I keep the house. –Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • I haven’t slept for 10 days, because that would be too long. –Mitch Hedberg
  • Standing in the park today, I was wondering why a frisbee looks larger the closer it gets… Then it hit me. –Stewart Francis
  • When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them. –Rodney Dangerfield
  • My husband hates seeing trash and garbage lying around the house – he can’t stand the competition. –Phyllis Diller
  • I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they’d never expect it. –Jack Handey
  • The company accountant is shy and retiring. He’s shy a quarter of a million dollars. That’s why he’s retiring. –Milton Berle
  • I’m a very tolerant man, except when it comes to holding a grudge. –Robin Williams
  • I saw a bank that said “24 Hour Banking,” but I don’t have that much time. –Stephen Wright
  • I always remember my grandfather’s last words: “A truck!” –Emo Phillips
  • Half of all marriages end in divorce—and then there are the really unhappy ones. –Joan Rivers
  • There are three kinds of people in the world – those who can count, and those who can’t. –Unknown

First Solo

I’d washed out of Moody’s flight school two years before, but remained at the Institute’s downtown Chicago campus to take courses in Bible and missions.

All of us students ate in the vast dining hall in Crowell Hall basement. I would look across at the flyboys who ate with us groundlings, but sat at their own separate table. They trained out at Moody-Wooddale Airport two days a week, but they lived here. Most of them wore immaculate, black flying boots. I don’t know how anyone could be a good pilot without black flying boots. Dave explained to me how he would smell burnt leather when he spent two hours burning off the old polish and applying the new. And their aviation glasses—gray-shaded and expensive. I didn’t feel worthy to wear flight boots or aviation glasses.

But I constantly dreamed of flying. I read and re-read the FAA’s small booklets—Facts of Flight, Path of Flight, and Realm of Flight (aerodynamics, navigation, and weather), and Wolfgang Langewiesche’s classic Stick and Rudder—still the best book I’ve ever read on flying.

When summer came to Chicago, several of the flyboys carpooled home to California, and took me along so I could visit my family. As we drove across the Midwest, I imagined every passing field a potential airstrip.

Now it is August of 1961, and fourteen of us enter Moody’s two-week flight camp. This is my final chance. After two weeks of training, I am one of only eight men accepted into the program.

The next day, our instructor, Leo, leads a gaggle of new pilots out to a tiny Cessna 150 sitting on the flight line. “Gentlemen, this is an airplane.” We all write it down. The airplane weighs 1500 pounds, and rocks in a light breeze—you can easily raise one wing and lift a wheel off the ground. It has a 100 HP Continental air-cooled engine that burns five gallons per hour.

Leo says, “Drain a little gas out of the gascolator to check if there’s any water.” I drain. The cold, green liquid overflows the little drain cup and runs down my arm. No water, but the fumes intoxicate me.

I write my Dad about Moody Wooddale airport: “It’s really a pasture—the ‘runways’ are all short-mowed grass.” But we will soon get very familiar with this pasture. After a summer downpour, the sodden field turns into an airplane-trap, sucking at the planes’ wheels. Once I got stuck, and had to get help to push the airplane out of a muddy, watery hole. Mr. Anderson sent me out with boots and said, “You have to stomp around in the mud and smooth out the ruts.”

Once every two weeks, Mr. Anderson has to pull a mower behind his red Farmall tractor, driving round and round for hours. After he mows he sets up bright yellow cones along each of the runways. No other markers and no lights. For night operation, Mr. Anderson puts smudge pots out along the sides of runway 18, the 3000-foot north-south runway. When you take off to the south, you climb out over the houses of Wood Dale, and when you circle back around low to land you head-waggle to look for cars along Thorndale Rd.

Runway 24 runs off to the southwest toward a narrow departure tunnel cut through the woods. On a hot, humid day, a Cessna 150 with two people and full fuel can barely rise fast enough to traverse the tree tunnel. Once, when I forgot to retract landing flaps before climb-out, I thought I would carry some of the tree branches with me.

In winter, the whole airfield turns white, so Mr. Anderson plows the airstrips and opens some taxiways. We put the J-3 Piper Cubs on skis for winter operation. The J-3 works well on the snow, but the skis have no brakes, so you have to plan ahead. One cold winter day I had an engine failure in a J3 Cub (my fault), and almost hit the 12-inch approach lip at the east end of runway 09.

Our tiny airport lies in the shadow of Chicago’s O’Hare International. We have to fly below 300 feet because the huge commercial jets approaching O’Hare airport scream over just above us. Each day, fledgling pilots and their instructors take off and fly west through a narrow, prescribed corridor out to our practice area. We learn to watch the smoke on the ground to determine wind direction. Here, we practice turns-about-a-point, S-turns across the road, slow flight, stalls, and spin entries.

This day, I’ve been flying with Leo for about an hour. After a few practice landings, Leo abandons his instructor’s seat beside me, and says, “Well, take ‘er around a couple of times. Remember she’ll be lighter without me in there.”

Suddenly I’m alone, and the next landing will be up to me. No support, no help, not even radio contact with Leo. I carefully taxi out to the runway.

As I take off and circle around, I notice a tiny dot along the active airstrip—it’s Leo, wearing black flight boots and grey aviation goggles, standing there and staring up at me. I take off and make a shallow bank onto crosswind leg. After reaching 300 feet altitude, I pull the power back and level off. Then I turn left onto downwind leg and begin a pre-landing check—fuel valve on, mixture rich, carburetor heat hot. I turn base leg, start a descent, and add 20 degrees of flaps. The last descending turn aligns me with the runway, and I lower full flaps.

But with Leo’s weight absent, the airplane is too buoyant. I point the nose down, but I’m too fast and too high! I remember my training—add full power, retract flaps, climb out, and circle around to try again. The second approach is a repeat of the first—too fast and too high.

I can’t see Leo’s face, but I imagine he’s wondering if I will get the airplane on the ground before sundown. On the third try I’m still too fast and high, but I determine to land anyway. I paste the wheels onto the ground far down the runway, then stand on the toe brakes to bring it to a skidding stop just short of the end.

When I taxi back, Leo says, “I’ve never gotten back into an airplane after a solo flight, and I’m not going to start now. Try it again. Slow up more on downwind leg, and start your descent sooner.” I take off again. This time I watch the speed, start the descent earlier, and come in for a perfect landing.

My first solo opened up a new world to me and began an adventure of a lifetime. But for the next 6,000 hours of flying I never forget Leo’s advice—slow ‘er up and start your descent early!