Such a Rush(6)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“That’s right,” he said. “And if the gas gauge were broken on your plane and you unexpectedly ran out of fuel, what would you do?”

“Crash?”

I had meant this as a sarcastic joke, but when he folded his arms, I realized that’s exactly what would happen.

From then on, I did what he told me without complaining and tried to remember everything he said. There was too much information, especially now that I realized my life would be riding on it, lots of other lives too, if I actually became a pilot. My little fantasy of nodding to passengers as they boarded my airliner seemed naive now. I would hide my misgivings from Mr. Hall, get through this lesson, and never come back.

He showed me how to pull the enormous front doors of the hangar open to the afternoon breeze. Then he told me to help him push the plane out of the hangar. I thought he was kidding this time—the two of us pushing this heavy airplane around. But come to think of it, I’d seen men pushing small planes on the tarmac. They must be lighter than they looked. I shoved from behind, he tugged on a contraption made to steer the front wheel, and the plane was rolling by itself onto the tarmac. We climbed into the plane, which wasn’t as luxurious as I’d pictured, with thin upholstery like a cheap car. We plugged bulky headsets into the dashboard so we could hear each other when we spoke into the microphones.

“Clear!” he yelled, his voice like gravel. He pressed a button. The propeller spun so fast it disappeared. The powerful vibration shook my seat. He drove the plane down the tarmac, past the hangars, and turned around. The trailer park was directly behind us. The other end of the runway was far off. My heart raced.

“Now we check the controls,” he said, his voice tinny in my headphones. “Don’t just look at these dials. Your brain can stay asleep that way. Touch each one and make sure it’s working.” He made me touch all the black circles in the high dashboard that curved in front of us. Then he showed me how to use the steering wheel—when he moved his, mine moved the same way—and the foot pedals. We looked out the windows to make sure the parts of the airplane were doing what the controls told them. I felt sick, and then my headphones filled with static. Something had gone horribly wrong.

Mr. Hall reached over. With calloused fingers, he bent my microphone a few millimeters farther from my lips. The static had been my own hysterical breathing.

“Ever read The Right Stuff?” he asked. “Heard of Chuck Yeager?”

“No.” I tried to utter the syllable casually, but I sounded like I was strangling.

“Chuck Yeager was an Air Force test pilot. First man to break the sound barrier, back in 1947. Other pilots were amazed at what he was willing to risk his life to do, and even more amazed at how calm he stayed while he did it—at least, that’s how he sounded. Airline pilots all use the Yeager voice when they come over the intercom and speak to the passengers, right?”

“Right.” I had no clue.

“And we use the Yeager voice on the radio too, no matter what kind of trouble we get into. Cracking up where the public can hear would be bad for business. Use the Yeager voice and say this.”

I repeated his words, information about the airport and our plane so other pilots in the area wouldn’t crash into us when we took off. In my own headphones I sounded like I was six years old. Any second, pilots and mechanics would come streaming out of the hangars like ants to pull the rogue toddler out of the cockpit.

“Now,” Mr. Hall said. “You were telling me that you like to watch airplanes, and they look like they shouldn’t be able to fly.”

“Yeah. And that was even before I knew what I know now.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shift, turning his shoulders toward me. I faced him too, for the first time since we’d been packed close in the cockpit. He tilted his head to one side, considering me, his weathered face impossible to read. But his voice was kind as he said, “There are lots of mistakes you can make. Pilots make them, and pilots die. Obstacles will kill you. The weather will kill you. But, as I’m about to show you, the airplane is your friend. The plane wants to fly.”

“If it has gas,” I said dryly.

“The gas is going to get the engine up to fifty-five knots—sixty-three miles an hour—but that’s all we need. Once we have air moving that fast over and under the wing, the shape of the wing creates lift. The airplane is an amazing invention. Watch.”

He faced forward. The engine moaned. We were racing down the runway before I realized it was too late to bail out.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said. Sure enough, his hands were off the steering wheel, fingers splayed, as we drew even with the Simon Air Agriculture hangar and rose into the air. “Lift. It’s all in the way this fantastic machine is constructed.”

We shot over the trees at the end of the runway and kept rising. I hadn’t realized how vast the forest was, unbroken in that direction as far as I could see. The plane slowly banked, and we circled back over the airport. I’d never realized how long my walk was from the airport office to the trailer park. I had thought it was fairly short because there were no trees or buildings marking my place beyond the last hangar, but the flat grass was deceiving. It was a long way.

Then we buzzed the trailer park. The directions of the roads and the narrow spaces between the trailers seemed different as I looked down on them. But this eagle’s-eye view was the true view, I realized. The view I’d had my whole life, at trailer level—that was the disorienting perspective. I was able to pick out my own trailer because of the position of the long metal roof in relation to the dark palm tree next to my bedroom window, which was taller than the trees around it. And the next second, when the plane had gained more altitude, I could see the ocean.

“Oh my God!” My own voice was loud enough in my headphones to hurt my ears. I had forgotten about the Chuck Yeager person who always spoke calmly. I thought Mr. Hall might reprimand me, but he just chuckled as I stared out the window.

Heaven Beach was, after all, a beach town. Other residents went to the ocean every day. I had known the ocean was there. I just didn’t get to see it very often. It might as well have been a million miles away from the trailer instead of two. And now, there it was, rising to meet the sky, dark blue crossed with white waves. I could see whole waves, crawling in slow motion toward the shore.

“Now you take the yoke,” Mr. Hall said.

Yoke. Not steering wheel. Lifting my head from the window, I put my hands on the grips and squeezed. My fingers trembled.