by Virgil Teague

Created on: July 15, 2008

TERROR WAS MY CO-PILOT

Plowing through some seldom-used drawers the other day I came across a ragged scrap of cloth that had once been the tail of a shirt. Suddenly, my palms began to sweat. That innocuous rag was infused with memories of the day I first flew an aircraft alone - my first solo.

No pilot ever forgets his first solo, of course, but to this day I get a case of the heebie-jeebies by just thinking about mine.

Not far from where I live is a small airport that had once served as a training field for young pilots of WWII. Today it operates as an FBO - fixed base operation - with a few hangers and a small line shack with minimal facilities.

As I drove past one day, I saw what appeared to be a World War I biplane floating over the field. I pulled over to watch and discovered that it was an ultralight with a ersatz "Red Baron" motif. When the craft landed - soft as a butterfly - I drove down the approach road and out to the field to chat with the pilot. I was intrigued.

Eventually convinced that the thing would carry two people into the air, I plunked down a few bucks and found myself strapping in for an orientation flight. The owner had become an instructor and salesman for ultralights when his legitimate flying days were ended by a negative medical report, citing heart problems.

The contraption was powered by a pusher setup; to start the engine, you reached up over your head and hauled down forcefully on a pull rope not unlike that on a power lawn mower. That should have given me some idea what I was about to experience.

The rollout was astonishingly short: in about fifty feet or so, we were airborn and climbing away, en route to an altitude of six hundred feet or so. The engine was noisy, but the pilot and I could still yell at one another as we floated over cotton fields and trees.

Soon I found myself with my left hand on the control arm, which hung down between the seats.
The throttle was the same rig as used on a motorcycle, and the pedals served to control both the rudder and a built-in wing warp that allowed the craft to turn and bank smoothly. I flew
as straight and level as I could, given that every puff of breeze threw the crate left or right or dropped it with a stomach-flipping lurch.

As we rattled along at a horrendous thirty-five miles per hour or so, I suddenly realized I was sitting on the equivelant of a lawn chair - woven plastic webbing - with absolutely nothing else between me and a long drop. The flight began to seem longer than necessary to

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