Just a few minutes before sunset and the 0-290 pops to life on 4th pull. Around to adjust the RPM and mixture, oil pressure is coming up, pull the brake pin from the left strut and store it in its console hole. Up with the nose and down with the nose gear. A last look all around and a quick hop up into the driver’s seat, and still a few precious minutes before the sun sets.
Taxiing out, folks look out grinning and waving. Up the hill Don is calling his takeoff roll in his yellow Cub, also racing the sunset. I hold short at midfield and he passes overhead at 200 feet and 60 mph. I pull onto the runway and back taxi to the north end, beating Don still out there on downwind.
Canopy locked, oil and fuel pressure good, looking for 2350 rpm, got it; brisk takeoff roll and we’re off like a prom dress. The nose wheel lifts off at 60 and the little white porpoise climbs briskly at 80 mph. I think of the deliberate effort it would take to get the nose over if the engine lost power. I wait for it on every takeoff but have made it out clean every time for fifteen years now.
Don is turning base in the Cub so I reduce power and hold 80 mph for the downwind, base and final. Normally the takeoff is a 150 mph climbout and turn to a 180 mph downwind circuit to a 200 mph low pass and west departure toward the ranchlands for a few wingovers and such. But today Don stays in the pattern and is setting the pace, so 80 it is, nose gear down and belly board out most of the time. We will each do three touch and goes at this leisurely pace. It takes some deliberate poking along but the Eze handles it well and the pilot enjoys the different corner of the envelope. Kinda like entering Oshkosh. The approaches are much easier to set up with everything at 80 mph.
I am glad to have this time sharing the pattern with Don. He is not just another guy out there. Two years ago he was on top of the world career and family-wise, living the life, when he got hit between the …eyes with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. For a year everything stopped for him except the treatments and checkups. He worked hard at beating it and a few months ago he got the news he wanted. Since then he got his license and the yellow Cub and …that special freedom that comes with flying. He has described that feeling for us several times.
He calls full stop this time and I take the opportunity for a low pass to the side of the runway to exercise the airspeed indicator. Pulling her back to 80 again, the earlier touch and goes pave the way for an effortless and very gratifying touchdown. The taxi back to the hangar is as fulfilling as the flight, almost.
This year, trying to get off to Rough River hit the proverbial snag, not quite finishing a few items on the plane, and a solemn trip south to my brother-in-law’s funeral. The feeling of disappointment in the gut of not being there at RR and seeing everyone is soothed in contemplating the joy of life, the sunset flights, the amazing feeling of that pull up and climb a few minutes ago, and even the therapeutic time spent tweaking the plane. When I stop in mid-step and look at it, it is an thing of beauty and amazement. So glad the steed sits out there waiting patiently.
We are happy for those of you that made it to RR and pulling for those of you still pushing to get in the air.
Bill James
