Holding 70: Kissing The Dream

*****NOTE: Had to repost every single picture, but it's worth having them back. There are two still missing that I will repost tonight. 022607/1702 hours PST

Okay, well....I had four YouTube videos to post for today, but for some reason they either didn't make it to upload land, or it just takes a long time until they can be viewed. In the mean, I'm posting some stills (without crosby, nash or young----you're welcome, Candace).

Danks Gott there was a break in the weather to permit a flight over to Corvallis yesterday. Lots of broken overcast, and some new snow to see along the way.

By car, the trip is 42 statute miles from my house to beautiful downtown Oregon State Beaver Land. The average speed over ground, in a motor vehicle, is about 42 statute mph. It almost always takes exactly one statute hour to get there.

----versus----

A 17 minute trip to the local airport, a 15 minute preflight and warmup time, and then another 17 minutes in the air to make the hike over the coast range. Not mention the fact that I then have to go to the FBO (Tell 'em what that is, Candace) and get the keys to the courtesy car. Yes, that's right. They have a car that you can just borrow. It don't cost nothin'. (Sorry to make your ears bleed, Logo.) I always put gas in the tank prior to returning it, along with three smoothies for the very appreciative office staff (No, Egan, I don't put the smoothies in the gas tank. Pay attention! I give them to the appreciative staff). Uncle Gawpo strikes again (Yeah, Egan, I can remember to do some things without having to go back there an hour later because I forgot something. Story of my life, though. As you know all too well).

So it's not like I save a bunch of time, but what I do save in not having to drive some incredibly windy road, deal with loaded log trucks spitttin' out mud like they get paid extra just to do that, and all the other "challenged" drivers out there, it more than makes up for it to fly. The view of other people's bumpers just doesn't compare to the scenery along the route from the air. Not to mention the sheer thrill of seeing 157 mph over ground on the GPS. Due to a headwind, I only got about 135 mph coming back. So sad. Do I need to call the WHAAAMBULANCE? Do ya feel my pain here, people?

So until I can get the videos up and running, here are some photos sponsored by my Verizon Razr and the HP Photosmart 707R......

I just love pitchers!


This is a bend in the Yaquina River, just after departure. That's where I'll be trolling for Chinook in September/October.















I love what shutter speeds do to the appearance of a spinning propeller.....




















KCVO---Corvallis Municipal Airport

At this very moment, I was talking to Logophile on the cell phone. Cell reception is really good from an airplane up to about 3,000 ft. Then it's spotty, but still possible. You might think that a phone conversation would be distracting. And it would be if I weren't explaining in minute detail what I was doing in the process, which is what I would be doing anyway----yes out loud to myself with my big person voice----all the way to the ground. I announce to myself every step of the pre-landing checklist. She heard me say, pull off power to 1500, apply carbeurator heat, fuel seclector switch set on "both," pitch nose up to bleed off airspeed, at 100 mph add 20 degrees flaps, hold 70 mph, hold 70 miles per hour, rate of descent 500 feet, hold 70, hold 70, hold 'er off, hold 'er off, hold 'er off, hold 'er-----squeak. Too much below 70 mph in my particular make and model and the wings would stall. With the flaps on, the stall speed is well below 70, but that is the magic place. Learning how to hold 70 and make it all come together to land smoothly is an art.





















After conducting business, I hop in the courtesy car, pour three smoothies into the gas tank, and head for lunch. I grab a nice, hot bowl of Pho. Here's the Pho (Fuh). You toss the small mountain of humongus bean sprouts in, break up the basil leaves and toss them in, then grab a chunk of meat with the sticks, swirl it in the "Cock Sauce" (big rooster on bottle) and Hoisin Sauce over there on the little dish, and bring it back to the spoon, preloaded with soup, and slurp it all up.

















Mary's Peak is the highest hill in the Oregon coast range, weighing in (?) at about 4,150 feet. Wish I could have seen the summit yesterday. It is bald and quite striking in snow. Of course, if I struck it, I would also be in the snow...... That would be bad. Locals say that you should not plant your garden until all the snow is melted off the top of Mary's Peak. My lesbian friend, M.B., calls it Mary's Climax.















Here's one for just the heck of it...















Beginning with the instrument with the blue in it, go counter clockwise: Attitude Indicator (sometimes called an artificial horizon), Direction Indicator (or DG, or Directional Gyro), Airspeed Indicator, Altimeter, Turn And Bank Coordinator, and Vertical Speed Indicator. These are referred to as "the basic six." If for some reason I lost all references to horizon and ground, I could navigate solely by reading these instruments. If J.F.K., Jr. had had sufficient training, he could have survived. There is an 80% probability that a pilot without an instrument rating will get dead if he or she flies into instrument meterological conditions. That's what you call your IMC. Your IMC will get you dead far quicker than engine failure, even quicker than catastrophic engine failure when you can still see where you are going to set the airplane down. That's what you call your VMC. Your visual meterological conditions. The number one cause of engine failure is fuel starvation. The other way to put that is called "running out of gas." Kennedy didn't run out of gas. He ran out of reference to the horizon. Even though he is the one who got dead (along with his wife and sister-in-law) what kills ME is the fact that he had an autopilot and didn't use it.

What is it with me and dead Kennedys?

Anyways, have a look-see at some of the panel.....(without Dorothy Kilgallen, Peggy Cass or Orson Bean. You're welcome Joe.)
















This was the return trip. 136 mph ain't too shabby......
















Schnow...

















Looking west over Yaquina Bay....


















This is what greeted me just east and a bit north of Newport. Squalls were mending sky to ocean. It was beautiful, man.















El Piloto...














When I landed at the Toledo airport I went to put my trusty vessel in its bed, but a bolt failed on a tension spring and pulley assembly and the door won't work until that is repaired. So I called the FBO (Candace? You're up again, Honey....) over at Newport and they were kind enough to share their bed space. Sure looks purdy under the bright lights...... Ya know, she was gonna be an actress, and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off for the footlights; I took off for the sky....













THE HOMILY:

Yes, this is just a little walk down photograph lane. But it's also a view into the dish where sits a slice of the dream pie.

I always wanted to learn to fly. When I was little, my mother's cousin Richard took me up in a Piper Cub. The beginning of the living of my dream: desire. I couldn't have been more than four because I remember stuff vividly after five. This is one of those way back there memories. I remember looking down at the ground and Cousin Richard asking me if I could see my mother down there. I couldn't. But what I could see was all that stuff in the airplane. And of all the things in that airplane to catch my eye, it was the small hole in the floor through which I could see exactly what our situation was. Through that hole I could see reality as it was in the air, high above the ground. I remember seeing that little patch of "nothing between us and the ground." No airplane. Nothing. Here was this little hole and if I could have dropped a pebble through it, it would have hit the ground. Here was this little hole and if I could have become small enough to fit through it, I would be the one falling to the ground. But because more of the airplane was not a hole than it was, we could stay up there and defy everything our bodies ever knew about gravity. I loved that. It was unreal. That hole was an aperture into a dream. Picture that. I sure did. Now I can fly.

For me, holding 70 is kissing the dream. It is that precarious press of the lips against the glass where it all comes together; where, on the other side, the lover waits patiently. Too little pressure and you never get there. Too much and the glass breaks. But miraculously, the glass just disappears altogether when the wheels are on the ground. Just the sound of that, "the wheels on the ground." That is the kiss. That is the dream.

In her book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard saw a mockingbird drop from the edge of a roof. The bird fell nearly to the ground and, just prior to colliding, opened its wings effortlessly at the very last second. She said it was at that point that she realized "all my life I had been a bell, but had never been struck." She talks about how she just happened to catch the bird's plummet out of the corner of her eye. Realizing how lucky she was, she said, "It seems to me that grace and beauty are performed whether or not we will or sense them; the least we can do is try to be there."

Turns out, after all, I finally do get to see my mother down there. She is earth and all earth's pulls. She is all this work---energy and life. The losses as well as the wins. She is love of others. She is love of self. She is waving. The least I can do is try to wave back.

Yes, there is more to life than applying the mechanics of flying. Yes, I would hope that, by the time I die, I will have become a human being. But I am not going to be pressing too hard on this side of the glass. I am on the glide slope. I have the runway in sight. I am maintaining the centerline. I am holding 70.

May we all strive to keep our dreams alive. They are all too easily awakened from. And whatever the dream, chances are it's not 16 Parkside Lane. Dream on my brothers and sisters. Enjoy the Pho out of life!




And now, here's Harry with a little message about dreams (pay close attention to the chording, Amanda). Remember the lead solo by that high-voiced female background singer? Boy, I sure do. But not any more. You'll see.....