Nothing by Chance

It was still light, in the afternoon of a Saturday.

“Remember how you said if it was right for us to be here Sunday, nothing could keep us away?” Paul said. “Looks like it was right for us to be here Sunday, unless you want to bug out tonight.”

“Nope,” I replied. “Sunday here is fine. The only way I could have been forced to be here was just the way it happened. So I figure that something interesting is waiting for us tomorrow.”

Sunday morning was the Annual Palmyra Flight Breakfast, and the first airplanes began arriving at seven a.m. By seven-thirty we had carried our first passengers, by nine we had both airplanes flying constantly and a crowd of fifty people waiting to fly. A helicopter was carrying passengers at the other side of the field. Our crowd was twice as large as his, and we were proud.

The air cluttered up with little airplanes of every modern kind, coming for the giant breakfast that was a tradition at the airport. The biplane and the Luscombe surged in and out of the traffic pattern, passing each other, working hard, snarling at the other airplanes, which were in no hurry to get back on the ground again.

We had learned that it is not wise to fly a landing pattern so far from the field that we could not glide to the runway if the engine stopped, but at Palmyra we were alone in our learning. There were long lines of aircraft all over the sky, and if all the engines stopped at once, there would be airplanes down everywhere except on the airport.

We flew constantly, drinking an occasional Pepsi-Cola in the cockpit while Stu strapped in more riders. We were making money by the basket, and we were working hard for it. Around and around and around. Palmyrans were out in force; most of our passengers were women and most of them were flying for the first time.

I watched the high wind of flight buffet and blow forward over graceful sculptured faces and

was astonished again that there could be so many attractive women in one small town.

The flights fell into a solid pattern, not only in the air, but in our thought.

Buckle the belt down tight on them, Stu, and don’t forget to tell them to hold their sunglasses when they look over the side. Taxi out here, careful of other airplanes, recheck the final-approach path for anyone else coming in. Swing onto the grass runway, stay sharp on the rudder here and see if you can lift off right in front of our crowd, so they can see the bright crosses on the wheels spin around, after the biplane is in the air. If we lose the engine now, we can still land on the runway. Now, and we shoot for the meadow beyond. Up over the farm, a little turn so they can look down on the cows and the tractor, if we lose the engine now there’s a fine little field across the road. Level at 800 feet, swing out to circle Blue Spring Lake. We sure are making a lot of money today. I have lost track of the passengers … at least two hundred dollars today, for sure. But you really work for it. Watch for other airplanes, keep looking around, lose the engine now and we land right across from the lake; nice flat place there to come down. Turn now so the folks can see the sailboats out in the breeze, and motorboats and skiers pulling white trails across the lake. A place to land over there on the left, one more circle here, throw that in for free to give them one last long look at the blueness of that lake, then down across the green meadow into the landing pattern and over town look out now there are all kinds of airplanes around. Fall into place behind the Cessna … poor guy doesn’t know what he’s missing not having an open-cockpit airplane to fly; has to drive around in that milk-stool. Of course he can get places twice as fast as we can and that’s what he wants, so fine, I guess. Wish he would keep his pattern closer, though, someday his engine will stop in the pattern and he’s gonna feel pretty dumb, not able to glide to the runway. There he’s in, turn here, slip off some altitude, look at the wind again, cross-wind, but no problem. Aim for the right side of the runway and plan to cut in toward the center so we’ll be slow enough by our crowd and ready to pick up more passengers boy the old barnstormers worked for their keep, forget it, it’s time to land now and every landing’s different remember stay sharp and awake you sure would look dumb groundlooping in front of a crowd like this, even if you didn’t hurt the airplane. Wheels are stronger than ever, good ol’ Johnny can really weld, that guy, and a better friend you aren’t gonna find anywhere. Ease her down, now, across the fence, those cars better look out for airplanes, driving by there, and we’re down and this is the hardest part of the whole thing keep her straight, straight, wait on the throttle, on the rudder they’re glad they’re down but they liked the ride, too. Slow and swing around in toward Stu let ’em out careful boy and keep them from stepping on the fabric and two more ready to fly, the brave people overcoming their fears and trusting me just because they want to see what it looks like from the air. A mother and her daughter this time, they don’t know it yet, but they’re going to like flying, too. Buckle the belt down tight on them, Stu, and don’t forget to tell them to hold their sunglasses when they look over the side …

Over and over and over again.

But once, the pattern changed, and while Stu was loading passengers, an angry man came to stand beside my cockpit. “I know you’re a hot pilot and all that,” he said venomously, “but you might be careful in the landing pattern for a change. I was coming down final in the twin there, the Apache, and you cut me right out, you turned right in front of me!”

My first thought was to say how sorry I was to do such a thing, but then his attitude struck me. Would I act like that to a fellow pilot on a crowded day? For some distant reason I remembered a pilot named Ed Fitzgerald, back with the 141st Tactical Fighter Squadron, USAF. Fitz was one of the finest pilots I knew, and a staunch friend, but he was the fiercest man in the Air Force. He always frowned, and we said that he was spring-loaded to the explode position. If a man made the mistake of crossing Fitz in any tiny way, he had to be ready for hand-to-hand combat with a wild leopard. Even if he was wrong, Ed Fitzgerald wouldn’t wait a second to slap down a stranger that dared antagonize him.

So I thought of Fitz then, and smiled within myself. I stood up in the cockpit, which made me a yard taller than this Apache pilot, and frowned down at him, furiously, as Fitz would have done.

“Look here, buddy,” I said. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re flying the pattern in a way’s gonna kill somebody. You drag all over the country and then turn toward the airport and expect everybody to get out of your way ‘cause you got two engines on your crummy airplane. Look, buddy, you fly like that and I’ll cut you out of the pattern every time; you go up there now and I’ll cut you out again, you hear me? When you learn to fly an airplane and fly the pattern, then you come back and talk to me, huh?”

Stu had finished strapping the passengers in and I pushed the throttle forward, to press the man off balance with the propeller-blast. He stood back, mad, and I pulled my goggles down and taxied off in a windstorm impossible to answer. I laughed all the way out to takeoff. Good ol’ Fitz, come back to help me.

By three o’clock the field was just as empty and quiet as it had been all the rest of the year. There was not another airplane in sight, save the Luscombe and the biplane. We walked across the cornfield to lunch, and collapsed at our table.

“Three hamburgers and three Barnstormer Specials, Millie.” Another aspect of security. You not only know the waitress, you have your own table and add things to the menu. Our table was for three, against the side wall, and the Barnstormer Special was strawberry sherbet with Seven-Up, whipped on the malt machine. Stu had even written it down, and it might still be there on a menu in Palmyra.

After a long time, Paul spoke, rubbing his eyes. “What a day.”

“Mm,” I agreed, unwilling to make the effort to open my mouth.

“What’s with Duke?” Stu said, after a moment, and when it was clear that nobody was going to do much talking, he went on. “She was out there all day watching you guys fly, but she never bought a ticket. Says she’s scared.”

“That’s her problem,” I said.

“Anyway, we are invited over with her and some of her friends for dinner tonight. Right across from the lake. Do we want to go?”

“Sure we want to go,” Paul said.

“Said they’d be back at five, pick us up.”

A silence again, which I finally broke. “Does it work? Can a barnstormer survive?”

“If your bird could survive that groundloop and get flying again two days later,” Paul said, “disaster has been ruled out. And I don’t know how much money we made, but we made a pile of money. If a guy sat down and scheduled himself so he could make all the fly-in breakfasts, and all the county fairs and all the homecomings at little towns, he could buy out Rockefeller in about a week and a half.”

“Long as you keep the airplanes flying, carrying passengers, you’re in business,” Stu said. He paused a moment. “Duke said today when I was selling tickets that they had a pool going in town, said the biplane would never fly again, after the crash.”

“She was serious?” I asked.