The sun makes its way west and the world slows down. Lights below appear as the sky gets darker. I've often wondered how many lights illuminate automatically versus those that people choose to turn on. They always appear, marking where people have taken up residence. The lights of large metropolitan areas can easily stretch from horizon to horizon, but tonight, the lights of small towns dot the prairie and with a few yard lights scattered about the farms in between. There is no moon nor clouds and the stars have the sky to themselves, save for the few of us traveling the lonely airways.
Most piston-engine airplanes in the country have been tied down on ramps or put away safely in hangars before the night came. Their pilots have had dinner and are watching the news. Even most of the jets are sitting at their gates for the night, but there are those of us who are still venturing across the starry night. A few red-eye regional airline flights inhabit the higher altitudes and may share the sky with a military training flight. Crews flying hulking three and four-engined freighters from Korea, Alaska, or Luxembourg make their way to their destinations across the country. Their smaller brethren may find themselves in the middle altitudes in twin-engine cocoons. Even lower are some of us in single-engine planes traveling to from point A to point B for one reason or another.
Conditions couldn't be better. The winds are favorable, everything is working, as the visibility is unlimited for the first time in weeks. The workload is light, but I don't let myself get too lax. Charlie is sitting to my right and he is quietly observing as I perform a calculation. After I make a note, I glance out the window and behold the Milky Way. It has been a long time since I've seen this many stars. Gann would have no trouble taking a sighting with a sextant tonight. I make some sort of remark about light energy and the time it's taken for this starlight to reach us.
"That's getting pretty deep, once you get to talking about the size of the universe," Charlie says.
"Too many people get caught up in watching over the airplane that they fail to observe the wonderful things we see up here. That's why we do it, or why we should be doing it."
Charlie's been doing this sort of thing for longer than I've been alive. He obviously is still in quiet awe when he flies. The nature of our conversation has turned from technical aviation jargon to topics and relaxed attitudes more often found around a campfire. Our flames are the stars above, a few lights below and the red glow of the instrument panel. Flying on such a night often induces a trance-like calm over the pilot, and he has time to reflect on various things beyond the cockpit. We cruise on in silence for a while longer. My eyes haven't spent too much time concentrating on my nav log lately, but the needle is still centered.
We are soon passing our last VOR and inbound for home. We've decended and I can make out familiar landmarks like lakes and towns easily, but something is not right. The needle is not centered on our outbound course and I can't figure out why. OK, back into the cockpit. What's going on here? I know where we are, but I can't account for being apparently off-course. The instrument has given us no trouble all night. I query Charlie on the matter and he's not of much help. I run through a scan of a few items, turn the OBS, and then it hits me. I never changed frequencies and am still tracking off of a a station two checkpoints back. No harm, no foul, but I've learned a valuable lesson. Night flying is often beautiful and when everything is going right, things can start going wrong without being noticed. I have no doubt that Charlie meant everything he said during our period of campfire conversation, but he was playing off of my starry-eyed distraction and waiting for me to make a mistake, and it worked. Thankfully it was in excellent conditions. I might not have fared so well in a strange area with weather to worry about. I felt a bit humbled, but was glad he'd taken the time to teach me something that is only learened by years of experience.
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