http://www.ssa.org • August 2019 • Soaring 45... High instincts before which our
mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing
surprised.
— William Wordsworth
I
magine you’re loping along cross-
country, high and dry, when
ballast water suddenly begins flow-
ing from one wing – into your cock-
pit. And that’s how you discover the
cockpit doesn’t have a drain. From
there to the nearest airport, 20 miles
with a radically forward CG, you’re
up to the waist in what amounts to
ice water .... Yes, that really hap-
pened, and the dude did land “safely.”
Who wouldn’t love to have been a fly
on the inside of his canopy?
Speaking of entomology, fire ants
are best known for their reprehensi-
ble decorum, especially as stowaways.
I know two soaring pilots who, after
losing airborne skirmishes with those
little demons, always tuck their pant
legs into their socks before flying. To
appreciate why the fuss, just ask your-
self where y o u’d least wish to suffer an
excruciating bite, and go from there.
I had a very young student who
was, in my opinion, unduly scared of
bugs. No big deal, but I felt obliged to
contend that it’s the bugs who should
be afraid of us. On one occasion, we
were set for takeoff and I was mak-
ing a last comment when he spoke up
out of turn, obviously trying to sound
calm.
“There’s a spider between my
pedals.”
“Oh, just those little white ones
that live in all the planes. They’re
harmless.”
“This one’s not white. It’s black.”
One angel said blow it off. The oth-
er said not so fast. I weighed the mer-
its for a nanosecond, then climbed
back out, frankly supposing it was a
waste of effort .... But sure as down
follows up, actual scrutiny confirmed
a live black widow suspended in its
web right between the student’s feet.
You can guess the rest.
Which inevitably evokes the mythic
rattlesnake-under-your-seat scenario
we’ve all heard variants of. In most tell-
ings, the snake becomes sluggish at al-
titude, but even so, it’s still gotta suck!
Say you’ve summoned whatever kind
of fortitude is necessary, plus more
feral quickness than you ever knew
you had, and adroitly SNATCH your
opponent so close behind the head
it can’t possibly bite you. Nice play!
(Worry about your underwear later.)
Now hit pause and think through
what the next few seconds will bring.
With one hand holding the canopy
open and one knee more or less guid-
ing the stick, you reach outboard for
the drop, but by then the snake is
double wrapped around your arm and
you dare not let go! It, meanwhile, is
thinking a reptilian version of the very
same thing, and with equal fervor ....
This is a sequence that has to end
somehow, and fairly soon. Any ideas?
Me too.
You may notice that these tribula-
tions were all visited on persons otherthan myself. I often confess profess
to being preternaturally lucky; is this
proof? No, there are limits to even
the preternatural, and I too have
eaten my share of offal waffles in the
cockpit. One sample, a kind old fel-
low with unusually long legs asked
me to fly his modified Duster, and
temporarily installed 4x4 blocks on
the rudder pedals so I could reach
them. Foolishly, I took no interest in
how he attached those blocks, so had
no idea what to do when one came to
rest under the pedal instead of on it.
In homage to Murphy’s law of battle-
field repair, that’s all it took to conjure
a sporty crosswind for the landing.
Then there was a seat pan that col-
lapsed into the bilge, dropping my
eye level to below the gunnel. This oc-
curred in mountain turbulence, natu-
rally, which also caused my student to
squeal, “You got it!” I had to crane my
neck to see out and aim us away from
the nearest high ground, then insisted
the student take over again so I could
unbuckle, squirm around backwards,
and begin researching the problem.
“Whatever you do, don’t go invert-
ed for a while, okay?”
All these unsettling embarrass-
ments have something in common.
Know what it is? Each one (with
the possible exception of our first ex-
ample) could have been averted by
more thorough preflight inspection!
.... What else can you say? “Soaring Stories” is excerpted from the
Southern California Soaring Academy
weekly e-letter written by Dale Mas-
ters. Dale is a retired CFI-G who’s spent
years soaring in the SoCal area out of
Crystalaire, as well as Sunriver, OR and
northern VT. Dale is author of Soaring:
Beyond the Basics.Unexpecting the
Expected
SOarING STOrIES
BY DALE MASTERS