There is a door in my front seat, a Gibb door, streamlined and finely crafted. A secret passage. If closed, it’s hidden along the sleek physique of my plane. I leave it open, like an open invitation. Nothing is as welcoming as an open-cockpit biplane with an open door. A leather strapped hinged hug swings out to greet you. A crooked smile spreads across the face of the fuselage of my plane. Grinning wing to wing. Welcome back. Welcome home. Climb in, buckle up. Take my hand, take the stick. How long has it been? I can’t wait to show you around the sky. Let’s fly over there, that’s the view I’ve been waiting to share with you. Hang your head over the side. Sit awhile and visit the wind with me. Look how gently the wind runs its fingers across the lake. See it combing through the corn rows, untangling the knots in the wheat? The branches of the trees in the orchard are waving. The wood smoke rising above the meadow is signaling. Watch the wind write a timeline of where it’s been. Still waters next to the shore of the lake, telling tailwheel’s tales of where to safely land.
Let’s fly over there, that’s the experience I’ve been waiting to share with you. Hang your head over the side. Sit awhile and smell the sky with me. Close your eyes and open your senses. The sky’s made something special for you. Breathe in the golden delicious air, ripe with fall scents. Musky wet wool, lavender, pine, harvest chaff, and sage rise up to feed you. Sweet and savory combined on a pilot’s palate. A sensory buffet, a sky feast awaits. Different than summer, the air of fall is rich and thick. It spreads like cinnamon oil, warming and tingling, lingering on your skin. Soothing salve of aromatic air, protecting you from the frost that chaps your lips and cracks your wings.
Let’s fly over there, that’s the secret I’ve been waiting to share with you. Hang your head over the side. Sit awhile and visit the land with me. Feel the city as it approaches? Feel how unstable the air is, getting knocked around, pounded up and down by all the pavement? Feel the country as it approaches? Feel how stable the air is, gentle currents rising and falling through the warm lifts on pastures and the cool sinks on the lakes? Now look down, deep into the face of the ground. I have something you need to see. Our backyard is not the same. See how the sun tends to the wounds of the land? Its light, like white bandages, smooth the cuts and bruises inflicted by civilization. An oxymoron, as if civilizing any place is achieved by clearcutting its wild spaces and scaring its skin. Pilots have a very special view. Don’t look away, look in.
Let’s fly over there, I’ve saved the best for last. Hang your head over the side. Take me up high, we’re going to play with the sky. I’ll teach you how to do lazy eights the Stearman way. It’s all about pitch and very little bank. Wingover’s and roller coaster’s, steep turns and chandelles, dutch-rolling down to the ground to chase our shadow. Let me show you the most beautiful thing you’ve never seen. You. Look how you light up when you fly. Twenty years I’ve been a CFI, still the most beautiful view is watching a pilots’ eyes reignited in flight. Welcome back. Welcome home. We missed you. Like a porch light with no off switch, a pilot’s light never goes out. The light glowing inside pilots’ eyes can never be extinguished. Once dimmed, embers deep within, glow back to life when fanned by the open door of an airplane.