Flying With My Father

The week before Father’s Day I am headed home on a flight from Houston.  The view out my window is something of a surprise this evening.  I have forgotten how close Houston is to the coast.  Within minutes we are over the Gulf of Mexico.

Flying fascinates me most times, but especially at sunset.  On this hazy summer evening the vast water and sky are similar in color, slight variations of gray and blue.  I look out and see oil tankers below that, in the fading light and color, seem to be floating not on water, but air.  They appear to fly silently beneath us, leaving V-shaped vapor trails behind.

It is moments like these that must have captivated my dad and compelled him to fly.

My father was a poor pilot.  By that I don’t mean his skills were lacking.  What he lacked was money.  Some pilots fly by the seat of their pants.  My dad flew by the change in his pocket and shameless perseverance.

He was actually an excellent pilot.  “You’re dad is one of the best,” a flying buddy of his told me one day.  “If I’m in a tight spot, I want your dad in the pilot’s seat.”  That’s a statement a son doesn’t forget.

Dad was good because flying came to him naturally.  I went along with him for his first lesson.  I was about 10, which means he was well into his 30’s when he first climbed into a cockpit.  The instructor took us up, and after a few demonstrations, gave Dad the stick. 

It wasn’t long before Dad was pulling the nose up and forcing us into short controlled stalls.  The Cessna would climb until it lost momentum and began to slide backward.  The wing dipped, and the nose turned down.  Dad gave the engine throttle and pulled the plane up and out.  It felt like a rollercoaster at the bottom of a plunge.  Dad cackled with a laugh I rarely heard as a child.  The instructor looked bemused, but approving.  I gripped my seat excitedly and wondered when the ride would end.

Dad threw himself into flying like an addict seeking a fix.  I did not get to go on any more lessons because he used a Cessna 150, only a two-seater, the cheapest ride available.  He soloed after only a few months and got his private pilot’s license shortly thereafter. 

He could not afford to fly as much as he wanted, so he resorted to any tactic that would get him in the air.  He hung out at the airport, did odd jobs, begged for time behind the wheel.  He offered to fly copilot for others.  He ran up tabs that, when payday came around, I heard he and my mother argue about paying.

Although he was never a licensed instructor, he gave people lessons.  Although he never got a commercial license, he flew businessmen on trips.  He flew fishermen across the Gulf to Costa Rica.  He once flew a record producer from Nashville to New York City and somehow convinced air traffic control to let him land his rented Cessna 182 at La Guardia, one of the busiest commercial airports in the world.  “I always wanted to do that,” he said.  “The guys in the control tower had to be cussing me.”

He flew lots of people, but I think the thing that attracted him most to the air was the time he could spend there alone.  He told me once about flying alone at night from Charlotte after dropping off some passengers.  A violent storm blew up over the Smoky Mountains, but rather than turning around he picked his way through.  The winds blew the little plane all over the sky.  No stars above, no lights below.  I suspect he never felt more alive.

Dad was a middle-aged lover of flying.  But like a middle-aged lover of women, his money and his body gave out.  Flight as mistress is actually a good analogy because his passion for planes definitely compromised his relationships with my mother, brother and me.  He wrote one time about seeing me in the side mirror as he rode off with buddies to the airport.  I had my baseball glove on, but no one to play catch with.  He wrote that he always regretted not getting out of the car and coming back home.

There are things I begrudge about my dad, but flying is not one of them.  As an aging guy myself, I understand the need for passion in a dwindling life.  Some men look for it among women.  Some men look for it on a golf course, or in a bottle, or on big boats. 

My dad found it in an airplane. On this hazy gray-blue evening, with ships floating in the air below me, I understand why.