Celestial Suspension

From 2 Years Ago

Fighting an obstinate headwind close to the Continental Divide, I decided that I'd had about enough for one day. What was I doing up there anyway? I got three or four mediocre pictures after taking scores. Mission accomplished, sort of. Oh well, even if I wasn't an aerial Ansel Adams with my new camera, at least it had been spectacular flying on this early autum evening. The mountains were proudly displaying their first permanent snow of the season. Heading west, nose down, get some speed, now bring it back up, sun in the eyes! OK, speed dropping off, kick her to the right, let the nose fall off to the side, stick to the left. Really feel gravity unloading to the point that it’s almost not there. Once the course is reversed, ease the nose back up. Don't let that airspeed get too high.

Having put the equinoctial sun off my tail with a showy wing-over salute to Longs Peak, I rode the wave on down, at one point cresting 130 mph as indicated on the GPS. Nice tailwind. Even so, it’s always a lengthy glide down from the mountain, falsely seeming longer to get down than it did to claw up through the air with a naturally-aspirated 100 horse engine and achieve altitudes most would say impossible in a Champ. Perhaps an Aeronca would have trouble climbing above 14,000 feet over the plains, but when there’s air moving vertically, it can pick up a 900 pound airplane and its pilot and thrust the pair up hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds. A little scary at times, especially knowing that the same air can move back towards earth, but as long the rules of mountain flying stay fresh in your mind, there will always be a back door. Still, rules have exceptions.

On the way down I passed from the smooth, but swiftly moving westerly flow through an eastern current that was bringing a slight accumulation of haze against the foothills. This transitional zone proved to be rather turbulent. I pulled my seatbelt tighter and stowed the camera as my craft was tossed about in the invisible currents and eddies. At about 10,000 feet, I entered a third strata of air which seemed to extend to the ground. The atmosphere here was stable, perhaps moving ever so slightly to the west, if at all. The air was finally at ease, allowing my nerves to reach a like state. Still high above the foothills, Longmont lay directly in front of me. To the south I could see Boulder and even downtown Denver. For twenty or thirty miles in front of me, the sun had already set behind the Rockies, leaving the earth in that slightly purple shadow that precedes true night by an hour or so. Over my shoulder, the sun still blazed, it's rays finding their way through millions of miles of space to my wings, struts, and instrument panel. Left behind on the epic journey were the bluer shades which are lost to the hundreds of miles of atmospheric dust encountered when sunlight strikes the earth at dusk's low angle. Every surface of my craft touched by the retreating light glowed with a radiant bronze hue. Ahead of me, rising into the pale eastern sky, the full moon hung loosely. The highlands were a milky-white color with the dark craters and the Ocean of Storms matching the shades of blue of the surrounding sky. In this moment of light and shadow, of color and darkness, I felt suspended between three celestial bodies. As the sun fell lower behind me and the moon rose higher into the early night ahead, it seemed as though I was remaining still in space and the earth was rotating beneath me. I sat there, the last human in my field of view left in daylight, feeling entirely small, totally detached from the world below. It was slightly lonely and wholly humbling. Ahead, the shadow of the mountains grew longer and longer across the plains until it rapidly reached the horizon. Glancing rearward again, I caught the last glimpse of direct daylight. The sun, now just an orb in a gap in the rocks, suddenly disappeared, extinguishing any glow left in my wings, leaving my tube-and-fabric spaceship in the shadows.

Still descending, I passed over Longmont's airport, glancing down at the rows of airplanes tied down for the night. A few minutes later I was over I-25 and its two parallel channels of headlights and taillights. By this time, I was a mere thousand feet above the plains, back in the air that fits like a glove. Nearing home, I tuned to 122.9. Seven clicks. So long as I’m turning on the airport’s lights, I might as well turn mine on. Throwing the switches failed to reveal more than a faint red reflection in the instrument faces. Still too bright out for the cockpit light to do much good. Enter the empty traffic pattern. Make the obligatory radio calls. Fly a constant turn from downwind to the numbers, then hold it off til the mains... no, not yet, just a bit longer. There, stick forward, just like that. I swear the wheels on this plane must be made of butter. One of those perfect landings that come along once in a great while. Rolling out, plenty of runway ahead, no need for the tail to come down yet, just keep the stick forward with a hint of power. Ok, now let her settle and ease the stick all the way back. Turning off at the end of 33 and down the sloped taxiway to the hangars I kept the power off and just let gravity pull the little Champ down the grade, switching off everything but the lights. One left turn, onto the level ground, then just enough momentum to make the right turn in front of the hangar and she eases to a stop, no brakes used since releasing after the run-up nearly two hours ago. One day I’m going to shut the engine off once I exit the runway and Bob Hoover it on in. Now, that’s just getting boastful. Enough of that. I shut her off with the key as always and the prop comes to a stop leaving the right blade up as always, as though eager to be hand-propped at the start of the next outing. I sit in the quiet cockpit for a few moments, removing my headset and listening to the Continental tick as it cools.

A slight roar from above reveals the presence of a Dash-8 passing overhead inbound to the big airport. In a few minutes, none of the passengers will be sitting silently listening to the sounds of a cooling airplane. The cramped cabin will be filled with clicks of seatbelts unbuckling, electronic beeps and chimes of cell phones and Blackberries powering up, and a hushed rumble of people awaking from a trance, standing up in the aisles eager to exit their cocoon.

"Hi, yeah, we just landed. Where are you at?"

Me, I’ll just sit here in my spaceship for a while, listening to her engine cool. I need a while to gather my thoughts before I set foot on planet earth and again join her ranks.