Some of you may remember last year when I almost bought a 40-year-old Hughes 269A helicopter – but was put off by the high insurance costs.
Some of you may remember a time in 2000 when I tracked down the airplane I “earned my wings” in.
Well, I haven’t been flying for a while because I either have the money but no time or the time but no money. It’s been killing me. I can’t stand being ground-bound. So today I contacted a local FBO to enquire about getting back into fixed-wings. Eighty-five bucks an hour for a C-172! Unbelievable! (I can rent cheaper 20 miles away, but I’d really like to hone my abilities in the crowded airspace of the L.A. Basin.)
I’ve been looking at Kitplanes magazine. Of course I don’t have the time to build my own. (But there’s a sweet-looking single-seat, turbine-powered Helicycle helicopter for $22,000.) So I went over to the FAA aircraft registry site and verified that the owner of old '573 was still who it was in 2000. He never replied to my letter, but what the heck? I may as well try again.
Cessna changed the 172 around 1973 or so. It got a new tail “skeg” and tubular steel maingear struts. It really looked – and looks – rakish. '573 is a 1970 model. It has the short skeg that I never really liked back when I was flying it. Being young, I liked the sleek look of the newer planes. But a couple of years ago I saw a '70 172 up at VNY that was parked next to a newer one. Ya know what? The older design really looks jaunty perched up on its flat spring steel landing struts. Yeah, that’s just the word: “Jaunty”.
There are faster planes than the 172. Face it: The Skyhawk is the Honda Civic of the airplane world. Not especially pretty, not especially fast, common as dirt. The 172 is not a sexy airplane.
But you know what? There’s a reason there are so many of them. They’re good, solid, simple airplanes. Gobs of lift in those thirty-six foot wings, and 40° Fowler flaps in the older models that extend like aluminum barn doors for a nice steep descent. They’re forgiving aircraft with a good useful load. The high wings shield pilot and passengers from the rain.
'573 took me on several trips from the arid Mojave Desert to the green of southern Oregon. It numbed by hindquarters with its notoriously uncomfortable seats. It took me aloft on a see-forever day and let me say, “I am King of all I survey.” It entered sounds and smells into my sensory catalogue. It took me several times to Las Vegas for lunch. It gave me Quality Time with my father. It gave my sister’s dog a ride.
So what if the paint was ugly and the non-matching interior was tatty? It flew! And that’s the important thing: to “leave the planet, if only for an hour”.
I don’t know if the owner will sell '573 to me. I don’t know if I will ever fly that old friend again. I don’t know if I’ll ever own my own aircraft (but I suspect I will once I set my mind to it).
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
– RCAF Flight-Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee Jr.
(1922-1941).