Page 22 - April21T

Magic
The experiences that stick with us. by Kevin Ware
When I was an 18-year-old high school se- nior, I read in the classified section of the Seattle Times that a flight school on Boeing Field was offering a “guaranteed to solo” package for $99. At the time, I was making $1.25 per hour pumping gas, checking oil and cleaning windshields in a gas station – $99 was a lot of money. But I really wanted to do this, so I went and found the flight school in an old rundown Quonset hut on the south end of the airport. It was run by a couple of old gruff, laid-off airline pilots. I paid the money and the larger and louder of the two rec- ommended we get started right away. So out we went to preflight the training aircraft, an ancient 85 horsepower fore and aft seating Tri-Champ. It had a Narco coffee grinder VHF radio, no headsets and microphones that looked like they belonged to a WWII bomber crew, each hanging on a hook on the left side.
After a minimal preflight, we cranked up the little engine and taxied out to Runway 12, did a brief run-up, and took off with a straight-out departure down toward the Kent Valley. As the cars, houses and people beneath us gradually became smaller and smaller, I was immediately fascinated by the magic of it all. I stared wide-eyed out the right side of the airplane until all of a sudden, a microphone flew past my head and nearly banged me on the ear. This was accom- panied by a string of loud, mostly four-letter words to the effect that we were up here to learn to fly, not stare at the ground, and if I did not start paying attention right away, he was going to whack me on the head with the microphone.
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Not knowing anything about flight training (and just as- suming that threats of physical violence must be a normal part of learning to fly), I then paid attention to everything the man said. One week and 4.4 hours later, I soloed. I com- pleted three somewhat bouncy landings, then pulled the Tri-Champ up to the flight school ramp all by myself and shut the airplane down. I just sat there for a while, savoring the magic of what had just occurred. My instructor stood on the building’s porch looking somewhat disgruntled. It turns out, for $99, they try to solo all their students in less than 4.5 hours, and I had just barely met their criteria.
I, of course, wanted to f ly some more but was told I would need to bring in more money. A month or so later, I was back with about $50 and asked which was the cheapest airplane for me to fly. Their reply was not the Tri-Champ as that airplane was busy soloing other $99 specials, but they could check me out in the Cessna 120. Off we went to explore the mysteries of tailwheel operations, and sure enough, within another hour, they had me soloing in that airplane. From a teenager’s perspective, I found the tricky ground steering and the fact the airplane desperately wanted to ground loop to be fascinating. I just loved it. It was also magic.
I graduated from high school shortly thereafter and moved to Florida where I had a seasonal job working in a hotel as a bellboy. With my eyes set on becoming a pilot, I came across a 65 HP Piper Cub based on a grass airport south of Miami that the owner would rent for $4 per hour,