Better for the Birds

by RICHARD CHURCHILL

A COLLEAGUE of mine is a new member of a flying club and, as such, is entitled to speak for one of their little four-seat Piper Tripacers once every couple of months or so.

He wanted to make a rum run to Mexico and invited my wife and me and another friend to a share-expense trip. We had been having some very nice weather, so in a weak moment we said we would go.

Accordingly we gathered in the chilly dawn at the appointed time out on the west mesa. Our host appeared from behind a cloud, where he had been taking his kids joyriding (it would be a little bitter to say on “our” gas). When he landed, he filed his flight plan. We all took a last loving look at terra firma, squeezed in, and bade fond farewells. Our host stepped on the starter but nothing happened. He called for a boy to “prop” him, and the poor lad nearly wore his arms off before the motor finally popped, sputtered, fluttered, caught, and spun. The boy pulled the brick out from under the wheel (the brakes weren’t so hot) and we were on our way.

Our host explained to me in a soft shout, as we giddily climbed, that this should be very interesting since he had never flown cross-country before but was anxious to log that kind of time as he might want to take a commercial pilot ‘s license examination someday.

He then flew low through the Sandias via Tijeras Canyon. It was turbulent and we were glad to hit the eastern plains. Then the pilot thought he’d better study the chart; so, the plane being a dual-control job, he ordered me to take over.

“Who, me?”

He told me it was just like driving a car — and it was, except the motor began to cough. It seems I was climbing without gunning her, a common beginner’s fault, and had already reached an altitude above the flight pattern, where in New Mexico you can expect to be buzzed by an angry jet. Never have I driven a car that required pulling back on the wheel to make a hill on high. In a plane I thought that was done with a “stick.” Not so; it’s just the steering wheel.

I didn’t mind at all when he got through studying those charts. The easy way would have been to follow the river down, but that was too simple for mine host. He wanted to see the White Sands and Alamogordo; so we flew a tunnel between two restricted areas and, except over some malpais (volcanic badlands), experienced smooth air and were genuinely surprised, when we did pick out recognizable landmarks, to discover that we’d made much better time than planned.

When we approached El Paso we banked around looking for other planes and turned on the radio. Our skipper nervously fidgeted with the mike: “Alpha 34-75, calling El Paso. May I come in — over.” In our far from airtight cabin, the loudest shout was a soft whisper; but now a voice like the crack of doom came over the air: “Alpha 34 gobbledygook schmerz blur schnec schnek bloop

—that is all.” Whereupon our host selected the biggest, longest runway and banked into what looked like to me a professional approach. The voice came back tinged with slight concern, “Alpha 34 southeast blurp umphing Runway 26.”

“Maybe he wants us to come in on Runway 26.”

I was only trying to be helpful. “Could be,” snarled the man at the wheel. I don’t think he knew which was Runway 26, but he tried another promising one and was waved off. Then he landed and it was a nice smooth landing.

Juárez was all right. We had filet mignon at Dominguez’s — and that would conquer anybody’s prejudice against Mexican cooking — and drank some good Carta Blanca beer, purchased our jugs and a few other trifles, took our dramamine tablets, and taxied back out to the airport.

All wind socks were quivering rigidly in an easterly direction. The clouds were getting grayer and thicker and skittering raggedly but fast. Our host asked us what we thought. We told him we didn’t think, it was up to him, and the tumbleweed kept a-tumblin’and a-tumblin’. He heaved a sigh and firmed his jaw. “Let’s go.”

Now the plane wouldn’t start at all, but half an hour and three prop boys later, after some extra-special priming, it sputtered and caught.

We started out on the longest runway, the one headed straight for the Organ Mountains, which rose milehigh just beyond the high-tension wires. The clouds looked darker and dirtier to me, and now we had cargo as well as passengers. We headed dead into the wind, which must have given us an extra lift. We took off like a banshee, but what happened next shouldn’t happen at a rodeo. It seemed we were at the mercy of every vagrant breeze, a little chip to be flung and tossed in an infinitely gray and hostile universe with hard jagged mountains sometimes under us, sometimes over — and sometimes sideways.

El Paso then got gabby with Alpha, and our host politely answered with one hand, his head knocking the roof occasionally, the other jerking frenetically at the wheel. Over the unearthly racket, he shouted in my ear, “I think we better go back.”

“So do I,”I shouted.

We did. This time there were no others coming in. We congratulated our hero on his happy landing, and also ourselves.

Now we were fairly broke and the banks were closed. We all felt crumby

and disheveled, but managed to cash a small check at the airport. We helped the sore-armed prop boys tie down the plane. We hiked to a public bus that took us to a streetcar queue, where we were finally jammed into a streetcar full of Mexicans, and trolleyed ignominiously back to Juárez.

There the best hotel, patronized by matadors and movie stars getting divorces, was within our means but full; so we settled for the second best, which was slam-bang on the main street of the town that never sleeps. We did though, and were up at 5:30 to try again.

It didn’t take any longer to start the plane than previously. We were well shut of the place when we made a routine check of gas. We had a little bit left. “Maybe that was because I forgot to close off the gas line last night,” said mine host. “It musta leaked out the carburetor.”

Well, that changed our carefully laid plans. We had intended to have one empty tank to compensate for our big pay load, and then to land at the longest strip between Texas and Albuquerque — Socorro — for a gas stop. As it was, we had but two alternatives: turn back to El Paso or make it to the still nearer but smallest strip in New Mexico — Las Cruces. We chose Las Cruces and after three wavering passes hit our postage-stamp target.

Only one thing went wrong after that. With fine engine speed we seemed to be making very poor air speed and thought we must be bucking a tremendous headwind, except that it wasn’t as rough as it had been the day before. About the time we picked up Belen, practically suburban Albuquerque, we saw that the wing flaps were down. After we put them up we sped like the wind, having burned, lost, or otherwise consumed 75 per cent more gas than we estimated.

Our pilot’s fellow club members were very sore at him; but we were very grateful, not so much to him as to God, which is the way it should be on the Lord’s Day. Anyway I can recommend amateur flying to anyone who thinks the family bus is small or rides bumpy. Those bumps felt awfully good and solid and reassuring as we drove home from the west mesa.