Leading Edge Flying Club

Today is the day. It had been two years since I put “the shirt” into the bottom dresser drawer. I knelt down, slid the drawer open, and peeled back a couple layers of t-shirts, and there it was. Waiting for me, untouched for these past two years. Today is the day.

Two nights ago, I checked weather. After all, I was heading to Oshkosh, WI in the morning for AirVenture 2011, and if weather cooperated, I would fly. The past week had been laden with a mixture of VFR and IFR conditions. There seemed to be a lot of convective activity each morning, so was prepared to drive if appropriate. Three hours in the car with fellow pilots was a fun trip, but to state the obvious, I wanted to fly. I had flown in to AirVenture before, but always in the right seat.

Although he already considered himself a pilot and dreamed of the day he would finally become an airline captain, he would not actually be piloting the airplane at all. The successful completion of an extensive oral exam, flight simulator and aircraft flight tests would earn him his FAA flight engineer certificate – and with it, his official new title as a United Airlines Douglas DC-6 Second Officer (S/O) would take effect.

The past two and a half months at the Flight Training Center in Denver, Colorado were a long and grueling way to begin his career as a United Airlines flight officer. He’d spent countless hours learning the aircraft’s normal, irregular and emergency procedures, the various aircraft systems and just as important, the company flight operations manual (FOM). That’s what was expected of each of the twelve “new hires” in his class. And woe was the new-hire flight officer who could not keep up. They called it, “Drinking from the fire-hose,” because that’s just what it felt like, minus the water.

It all started with a simple comment I made about how great boring holes was on a Saturday afternoon. My wife’s retort was, “EXACTLY!”

Had she come around? Did she just want to go flying, without the need to have family waiting at our destination? Was this really my wife, or had some alien taken over her body during the night? It didn’t matter. Truly, this was a magical day. And then it hit me. She thought the word BORING was an adjective, while I used it as a verb.