Flight gave man the final dimension with which to measure his wanderlust. Surface transport—the ship, the oxcart and the Ferrari—are all captive of plane geometry, yet it was with a plane that man was finally able to travel UP. (And, inevitably, DOWN.) So relentless was this upward urge that a flying machine went up to the moon eventually, and then it was no longer a plane but a spacecraft.
That an airplane was capable of a third dimension was incidental to its value, for aircraft were not for going up and down like an elevator, but for moving from one point to another. That moved aviators back into plane geometry; pity, for if they’d only to move vertically, pilots would never have learned how to get lost.
This peculiar talent for going the wrong way isn’t limited to me alone. Almost all pilots, from the beginning of the science of air navigation, have managed to arc off toward distant horizons with none of the blessings God gave such lowly creatures as pigeons, which manage to find their way with little fuss. Humans have a rotten sense of direction. Given the advantage of height conferred by air travel, one might have expected us to do a little better than our meager biological inheritance allows. But no! Put a human in the air and that piece of ground he treads daily will look as foreign as the dinner you ate coming up after a track meet. Charts and compass only obscure the issue using symbology and abstraction to clarify confusion.
Getting lost is grim stuff if one uses up all the fuel before finding a place to land. Every pilot who has gotten lost has known that weird constricting in the gut which accompanies the growing realization that he hasn’t the slightest idea of his position in space and time. All the tools that science has provided him—beacons, airways, omnirange, various instruments—are but trinkets if he loses reference to a known point. Granted, time and technology have greatly improved the well-trained airman’s chances of finding himself; a vast web of electromagnetic signals now laces increasing portions of the globe with the equivalent of highways that one merely follows or uses for reference. But even with addition of GPS and various other tools of navigation, we still manage to get lost!
Students of flight spend as much time acquiring the skills needed to keep track of where they are as they do learning the behavior of the aircraft. Because air travel is rapid, it only takes a moment’s inattention to lose track. Err only a few degrees off course and after an hour you’ll find yourself lost by miles. As you can tell, it’s very easy to get lost, which may account for its popularity.
Getting lost is a tense time for everyone, but worst for the lost one. To the spectator viewing the stupefied pilot through the lens of stories, there is a certain poignant humor to each situation, perhaps because the poor pilot’s fix reflects something of the human condition. Being just a little bit wrong is so very different from being exactly right. And now the time has come for me to tell you a little story. Every person has a moment in their life when they were really scared. As with many things in life, good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment and as you may know, the wrong decision going at 180 knots can make you a very permanent part of the landscape. Flying in itself is not inherently dangerous, but it’s very unforgiving to any recklessness, neglect or inattention. I’ve had to come to grips with some very harsh realities over the years. Foremost, every time I step in the cockpit I’m forced to come to the realization that this machine can kill me, as it has many of my friends before me. I learn a very valuable lesson: ‘The Go-No-Go Decision.’
The weather was not good, but it was not bad. The clouds were in two layers, both broken. For an hour, drizzles had come intermittently from the scud below. My route was from Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, to Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Bridgeport CT, just east of Norwalk. I had flown solo over the eastern Penn “hills” –some of the ridges rise to 2000 feet—before, and had a mind’s eye picture of the terrain and route.
It seemed to be clearing as I fastened my belt. An occasional shaft of sunlight came through. The Grumman Tiger with its 180 HP engine had felt fine on the check flight, and I had been surprised at its pleasant landing characteristics. Because the tail rides high when the ship is at rest, the amount of backward stick travel at the moment of stall is negligible.
At the end of the runway I braked the ship to crosswind position, checked the engine, tested the magnetos, wheeled upwind and took off. That was mistake number one.
I took my time climbing, scanning the clouds as I gained altitude. It didn’t look bad at all. Coming back downwind, I had 2500 feet, so I set off across the first ridge enclosing the winding river. Ahead of me, almost at right angels to my course, the river made a turn. Almost immediately, the scud began bothering me, and I turned toward a lighter spot. I was not more then three miles south of my course when the river appeared. I spotted a checkpoint, headed slightly south of east and checked both the deviation and variation of the compass. So far, so good.
Here the terrain played out, affording me plenty of places to get down in case of engine trouble. I was about to lean back with a sign of satisfaction, open a can of Coke when scud began whipping by. Rain splattered against the windscreen. I throttled back and nosed down, an eye on the altimeter and the tops of the hills. Should I turn back? The return to the airport would be easy, I knew that. But from 2000 feet, light spots appeared ahead and it was hard to give up a quest.
That was mistake number two.
Now it was nip-and-tuck with the scud. I couldn’t get over a 2000-foot ridge without pulling up into the stuff, and I was not a trained instrument flyer. I reasoned that I could go through a notch in the range at the right, keeping a valley of a branch of the Susquehanna in sight for 15 or 20 minutes for safety. In that valley within easy range were three airports, Riverside, Berwick and Wilkes-Barre. The clouds kept pressing down. I found myself at 1500 feet anxiously peering ahead at the ridges in my path. They ran from 1500 to 2000 feet. Ten minutes passed. I cut through a notch in another ridge. Now, for the first time, I was not quite sure of my position. I studied the map anxiously as turbulent air occupied my stick hand. Landmarks were at a premium. I still had time to cut north to the river and follow its valley to the haven of an airport. But if I did that, I might be stuck there all night.
I elected to abandon all thought of the river and to rely on my compass. If I held to a course slightly south of east, I reasoned, I must, with a following wind, come reasonably close to my objective. If unconsciously I veered south, I had to pick up Staten Island or, at worst, the South Jersey shore. If I veered north, I was bound to cross the Hudson River.
I hadn’t remembered so many hills on the course. And here was a lake I could not place on the map. Still, just south of east had to get me there—unless the compass had been calibrated wrong. I drove on , getting a little mad. I was sure I would cross and recognize the ridge split by the Delaware Water Gap. It was raining now and then, and the windscreen was getting dirty.
I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to. I didn’t know where to turn. Ducking up valleys had destroyed my sense of direction and as for the map, it had gone completely cockeyed. I certainly would tell the FAA about that! I scotched my worry with a singsong reassurance that just south of east must bring me out at some recognizable place. But the ship was pitching and, more often the not, I was not sure just where south of east was. Light-plane compasses swing like a blues singer.
I went on. The choice was not mine. Happily, the hills were lower. I measured them by rule of thumb and the altimeter as the ship went over them.
The tanks held four and a half-hours of fuel; no worry on that score. The rain had stopped, but the visibility was getting worse by the minute. For the twenty-fifth time I glanced at my watch. I had been out two and half-hours.
Suddenly, ahead of me loomed a shoreline. It was a straight shoreline, what I could see of it, and for all I knew, the water stretched eastward for 3000 miles to Europe. The fact was I could not see 500 feet ahead of the ship’s nose.
Well! I wasn’t so dumb after all. I knew now. This was South Jersey. I drew a sigh of relief, leaned back and pop’d that can of Coke open. Now I would fly just east of north, crossing the New York Lower Bay and Brooklyn, then LI sound to Bridgeport. That might take 30 minutes, maybe 40. Through the haze I saw the shoreline bear left sharply. The map corroborated that. But I couldn’t see the sand spit stretching north from the Atlantic Highlands. Well, the visibility was miserable anyway and I was right on an airspace reservation, so it was best to follow the shoreline. With something below me I might recognize with a little study, I failed to check my map. That was mistake number three.
