Nothing by Chance

First had come the seamless military trainers and fighters and air combat at transsonic speed, then the transports, then modern businessplanes, then an aging lightplane, now this biplane locked firmly into the day before yesterday. From airborne weapons radar to modern electronics to a simple panel of radio to nothing at all—the biplane was not only without radio, she was entirely without electricity. She was back in the days when a pilot was his own man, with no links to ground-people to aid him or to annoy him. 1929 is a happy year, but sometimes, watching a contrail pulling along way up in the stratosphere, I had to admit to myself that I missed the power and speed and the high lonesome joy of the fighter pilot. Sometimes.

The Luscombe was beside me now, trying desperately to slow down, to fall behind the biplane’s tail. I pushed full throttle, held the nose up, looked across the air at Paul, and laughed. The little sportplane could stand it no longer; all at once it shuddered and fell away toward the ground, stalled out. I pressed full rudder as the Parks stalled a second later and dropped down on the Luscombe’s tail. My reputation was secure. No matter what happened now, I could tell Paul that I deliberately gave him the advantage, after once having been on his tail. He pulled up again, rolling inverted, dropped away, spinning the sky around us both as I rolled to follow.

Stu was already at work convincing the customers it was a great day for flying, and by noon we had flown five passengers. We spent the afternoon in the shade of the wings, trying to stay cool. It wasn’t an easy job.

A few minutes after I had finally made it into sleep, Paul came over and woke me up. “What do you say to some watermelon? Wouldn’t that be great? Nice cold watermelon?”

“Sounds keen. You go in and get it and I’ll help eat.”

“No, c’mon. Let’s go get a watermelon.”

“You’re out of your mind. It’s a mile to town!”

“Stu! How about going in and us getting a watermelon?” Paul said. “Then we could bring it out here and eat it and not give Bach any.”

“You go in and get it,” Stu said. “I’ll wait here for you.”

“Aw. I just can’t wait around here doing nothing. I’m going to go up and do some flip-flops.”

“Fine,” I said. Stu was already asleep.

Paul took off a few minutes later and I watched some of his flying. Then I turned over and found a cooler place under the wing.

I didn’t hear him taxi in and stop, but he woke us again. “Hey, we have to get some watermelon. Nobody’s coming out to fly.”

“Tell you what, Paul,” I said. “You go in and get the watermelon, and I’ll let you use my knife to cut it. How’s that sound?”

A few minutes later a truck pulled out from the hangar, headed for town, and Paul was aboard. He had a fixation about that watermelon. Well, I thought as I went back to sleep, if he wants a watermelon that much, he should get his watermelon.

Half an hour later we heard Skeeter whinny hello and Paul was back, a watermelon under his arm. It was 100 degrees in the sun and he had lugged the thing all the way from town.

“Hey you guys,” he called. “Watermelon!”

It was hard to understand, I thought, munching on the cool goodness. If I was Paul, I would have let the lazy louts starve out there under the wing. At most, I might have thrown them a bit of rind. But share the first part of my watermelon with them? Never!

“I guess I better bug on out,” Paul said. “We’re not going to have many passengers, at least till late. It’s a long way back to California, and I might as well get started on it today.” He began separating his belongings from the pile of equipment, and set them neatly into his airplane. Cameras, film cases, bedroll, clothes bag, maps. “I’ll leave you guys the watermelon,” he said.

A car drove into the lane, and another.

“We have discovered a delayed-action Method C,” I said as a third car parked across the grass.

We started the Parks and Stu went over to talk to the people. First passengers were a man and his boy, and the man wore a set of goggles he had last worn in the tank corps in Africa. They said a few wind-blasted words and we were airborne, climbing toward the river up to the cool high air.

“Hey, that’s really nice,” the man said, eleven minutes later, as Stu helped him out. “Really nice. You can really see a long way from up there, can’t you?”

Stu closed the door after the next passengers and stopped by my cockpit. “You’ve got two first-timers and one’s a little scared.”

“OK.” I wondered why he had said that. Most of our passengers were up for the first time, and most were a bit apprehensive, though they didn’t often show it. These must be more worried than usual about flying in the rachety old biplane. But as soon as we were halfway through the first circle of town, they had relaxed and were asking for steep banks. It is the unknown that worries our passengers, I thought. As soon as they see what flying is like, and that it is even a little bit pretty, then it becomes known and nice, and there’s no cause for fear. Fear is just a way of thinking, a feeling. Get rid of that feeling by knowing what is true in the world, and you aren’t afraid.

Business was suddenly going strong. There were eight cars parked on the grass, and Stu was ready with two more passengers when I rolled to a stop.

Paul walked to my cockpit. “Looks like a thunderstorm west. I’ll be doing good to make Dubuque by dark,” he said. “I’m pushing it, aren’t I?”

“You’re never pushing it as long as you can control your airplane, remember,” I said. “If you don’t like the looks of things, just go down and land in a field and wait it out. You might as well stay one more night here, don’t you think, anyway?”

“Nope. Better be on my way, get back home. You’ve got four passengers waiting for you, no need me waiting around to say goodbye. I’ll get right on out.”

“OK, Paul. It’s been fun.”