Decision Waypoints, Is the Wing Attached?

Photos Courtesy of MJ
Master Editor: Deborah Begley

Pilots often run in families, as do some other professions, like dentists and mortuary directors. Many pilots have family aviators who flew in the military, or were captains for big commercial carriers, or owned a small aircraft that was handed down so that the next generation could keep the tradition going. Being surrounded by flying and flying stories about circling the heavens on silver wings must be magnificent…. magnificent as all that must be, it is a far cry from my story.

I come from a long line of terrified air travelers. I am an example that, though not in my genes, my passion is most definitely in my blood. How this mutation happened to me is a mystery to my relatives, but I think I know.

Taking a trip that employed a winged machine was a rare family event when I was growing up in the 1960s, done out of necessity and with dread. On my first airline trip when I was 10 years old, my father and mother clearly showed their feelings about airplanes: his breathing ceased and her body froze from takeoff until the hatches reopened upon landing.

My father’s reaction was understandable and could largely be seen as an example of what was then called “shell shock.” While serving in World War II in Army intelligence, my father was a passenger on an aircraft that crash-landed in the Puerto Rico area. Growing up, I had listened to this story several times over the years at our dinner table. Dad’s tales leapt to life like pages from my comic books, a live Captain America, telling how a peaceful morning at the base had ended in sorrow by nightfall, but not without compelling moments of bravery and selfless teamwork. His eyes would cloud and peer to the far end of the table, absorbed by private reruns of haunted episodes that happened long ago, but felt like yesterday.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized how frightening these experiences must have been for such a young man. I think my father told my older brother and me these stories to let some deeper pain surface, like a diver who needs decompression time. He was drafted at only 20 years of age and tasked to break enemy code that could help bring to an end a global war that seemed to have no end. His usual stoic disposition guarded him from expressing feelings very much, even decades later. Still he would get that distant look and tell us of an airplane that took forever to come to a stop and when it finally had stopped, how he carried his fellow soldiers ⎯ both injured and dead ⎯ over his shoulder from the damaged aircraft before it exploded. Some wars, sadly, never do end.

This was my introduction to flight. My father’s philosophy about airplanes was simple: An airplane could get us to a destination quickly — if it didn’t kill us first. Use the airplane and take your chances. He would fly, but not without the ghosts that went with it. My father’s mistrust of airplanes would last forever. He was convinced that his own survival on that fateful day was due to the good fortune of having had a seat over the wing. Therefore, my father booked seats for my mother, brother, and me over the wing. Dad said it increased our chance of survival on our family vacation from San Francisco to Baltimore, where more non-flying relatives nervously awaited our arrival. As we disembarked, even before we were hugged “hello,” we were scolded for choosing an airplane when we should have had the good sense to take the train if we truly valued our lives.

“Can I sit next to the window?” I begged, already captivated by the experience. “No, it’s safer to sit between me and your father,” my mother explained solemnly. Trying to argue the point was useless. Thankfully, however, mom had buckled in her small frame so tightly that she became one with the seat back cushion anyway, which allowed me to see out the window perfectly.

My mother’s distrust of airplanes was because fear can be contagious. After fastening her seat belt firmly enough to cause most people permanent circulatory damage, mom positioned her finger over the flight attendant call button in preparation to send warnings to the crew. This button was usually first pushed less than thirty minutes into a 3000-mile trip. The embarrassment for me was to know that soon all the flight attendants on board would wish they had called in sick that day.

Sitting by this small, delicate lady, who was even further frightened by my father who sat in a catatonic state, was hardly good entertainment for me. In addition, as all passengers then were expected to do, our family dressed formally for our airline trip. I was required to wear a dress, a hateful experience made worse since a skin-scraping petticoat accompanied it giving the overall effect of making me feel wrapped up in sandpaper. This left me in a constant state of fidget to find a non-itch position, which was impossible.

Moving about helped me endure the dress and freed me to absorb the wonders around me, and for that I am deeply grateful. Perhaps I followed my dream to become a pilot thanks to what I had to wear on that airplane trip decades ago.

There were no in-flight movies then, so to beat boredom and discomfort I wandered around for hours and helped myself to handfuls of TWA-wrapped guest soaps from multiple bathroom visits. I returned to my seat and stared out the window at the wing, enthralled, noting how panels on it moved like steel feathers. I excitedly pointed this out only adding to my mother’s woes. The result is why flight attendants today (back then we called them “stewardesses”) loathe the invention of the call button. Here’s how it started:

“No. That doesn’t look right, Mary,” she’d say, looking out as the wing flaps moved slightly. “There’s a problem the pilots should be aware of.” Looking over at my father provided no comfort or support whatsoever, so buzz went the button, and down the aisle, for the first but not last time, the stewardess came.

“Excuse me,” said my mother, maintaining control in her perfect articulate and pleasant English lilt. “I think there’s a loose part on the wing. Could you please let the pilots know? Thank you, dear,” she added with a smile. At that point, she tried to appear content. I begged her to reopen the window sash so I could see outside but was told the sun was too strong.

Some slight turbulence got the button too. Along came the stewardess, smiling a little less than the time before.

“Is everything all right? Is it about the wing I mentioned earlier?” whispered Mom, trying to disguise panic. “Is the wing attached?”

I glanced at my father, who was still fixed on the same empty crossword puzzle, his pencil poised over the paper. He would maintain that position until landing.

If the airplane needed to turn a few degrees or the Captain’s voice came over the intercom: buzz. “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, peering out at the suspected wing.

After her third buzz to alert the pilots of impending disaster, I saw the stewardesses huddling in the back galley. They must have concluded that to make the flight livable for themselves they would offer my mother complimentary cocktails. To this day, I believe that’s how the in-flight cocktail service got started.

After just two or three of whatever was in those miniature bottles, the buzzing ceased, the wings were forgotten, and we were all flying friendly skies once again.

In those days you could go up to visit the pilots, who always welcomed children into the cockpit. I roamed this magnificent enclosure, looked through the windows, thrilled at the views of the clouds below and blue horizons. The technical information, I thought, must be hard for girls to learn. Though the pilots were friendly and let me see their part of the ship, I never saw female pilots. The most visible role for women in aviation was that of the smiling, serving, and frazzled stewardesses.

For me, the best part of the vacation was getting there and going back in an airplane. I wondered if someday it would be possible for me to be up where the pilots sat. An airplane offered the best of all elements: big skies, a view of the world below, and the rush of escaping the ground and rejoining it again.

Who knew that one day I would discard what my relatives feared? I would successfully escape the inherent dislike of airplanes and instead, imagine and follow what I had long loved, learning to fly at mid-life.

I kept that flight in my heart and in my mind for a long time. My childhood room began to grow full with books on flight and on space and stars. Wooden airplanes and rockets took their places on my shelves. Since my enthusiasm for airplanes was not something shared by my parents, I was encouraged to look at “more sensible” interests and careers. Through the years as I grew up, I worked “sensibly” for great corporations and though I was content, was not doing what I really loved.

After leaving my corporate job to spend more home time with my children, then 8 – and 10-years-old, my life had become a routine of PTA meetings and carpooling. Each hour of my planning book was full and each day very busy, but it was far from exciting.

Then one day something happened that changed my life completely: my planning book disappeared. I couldn’t find it. My daily life was disrupted. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I was lost without it. Of course, there were plenty of new planning books at the bookstore — get a new one, I thought, go back to what is comfortable and familiar, but hesitation took hold as I considered this safe option. In truth, I didn’t want to return to what had become a rote and expected routine. Refill it with the old schedule or rewrite my life with my childhood dream?

This became the turning point in my life when I made a major course correction, to do what I had always loved and to realize my dream. During that first flying lesson twelve years ago, I knew where I belonged. It was the beginning of an incredible adventure that would change my life more than I could have imagined and I’ve never looked back.

I often wonder what my father would say about my life of air and space and love for anything that flies. I do know, however, what my mother would say: “Are the wings well attached?”