Another Record

Another Record(Michael D. Warner) ANOTHER RECORD by Michael D. Warner

Copyright 2005 by Michael D. Warner ..All rights reserved.

Doctor Crawford Wellington had drawn himself a full cup of my notorious coffee from the thirty-cup steamer sitting at the far end of the counter. He had arrived early this hot Wednesday morning. This student pilot took his flying seriously and seemed bent on setting a record for obtaining a private pilot’s license in the shortest time possible, having only recently soloed in a record seven hours. Most of us had required at least eight hours to accomplish that feat.

I had plugged in the steamer shortly before the doctor’s arrival and knew it would likely last throughout the week. The coffee was properly aged, as I had brewed it the previous Sunday morning.

The doctor was about to take a large slug of the oily, hot liquid. I turned my head, giving him time to grimace, to sputter, or to choke, three of the milder reactions I had come to expect from recipients of my free coffee, particularly those who attempted it during the week.

Hearing nothing, I naturally assumed the good doctor had chosen to grimace. After an appropriate pause, I turned back around.

“Awful,” he muttered, setting the mug on the counter and slowly backing away from it. “Simply awful.”

I put out my hand. He seized it in his own and we shook on it.

“You’re an honest man, Doc,” I said. “You would be surprised at how many people tell me that stuff is good. Some of them have even thanked me for a cup.” His eyes told me he did not believe that. “No kiddin’,” I added. “Sometimes people will lie just to be polite.”

“That coffee tastes as bad as it did the last time I was here,” he remarked.

“Were you here Sunday?” I shot back, not remembering seeing him that day.

“No, why?”

“That’s when I brewed it,” I told him.

“Disgusting,” he muttered, “some kind of record, I’ll bet.”

The doctor had touched down at my airport to have me initial his log book, substantiating for the FAA his completion of the second leg of of the required three-legged solo cross-country flight. After taking a break, he planned to continue to Pell City, his home airport, located about one-hundred miles to the northwest. We chatted a bit. He told me he would go for his flight test as soon as he had gained the remaining five hours solo time.

“The next time I drop in on you,” he said, “I’ll be a private pilot! Eight weeks, if I can do it. Might be a record. I’ll have my wife with me, too,” he promised. “She’s been dying to go for a ride.”

I accompanied him to the Cessna 172 parked in the grass tie down area and saw him safely inside. “So long, Doc,” I told him. “Have a good trip.”

The doctor waved. I stepped back and watched him start the engine. I could see his lips moving as he read the check-list to himself. I nodded at that: Good idea!

Minutes later, he was up and away.

I returned to the office to prepare for a dull day of washing dirty airplanes. The hangar was overdue for a good sweeping, along with several other minor chores. Collecting my buckets and brushes, I thought about Doctor Wellington and hoped he would have no problem with his upcoming test.

The FAA inspector at Birmingham was a man named Harley W. Clapsaddle, known throughout the Alabama aviation community as a strict, but fair, pilot examiner. I remembered my check ride with him. He had grudgingly issued my license, threatening to take it back if I did not “...get another flight instructor, go somewhere and learn to land before ever carrying my first passenger!” I promised.

I felt certain the doctor would pass with flying colors on his first try and would probably set some kind of record in doing it as he seemed driven to do.

A couple weeks passed and I was outside washing our new Cessna 150 trainer. My friend, Jack B, had stopped by on his way home from the local cotton mill. He possessed a student pilot certificate and I would take him along on flights whenever able. In return he helped me at the field in his spare time.

Together, we made short work of finishing chores. Something must have reminded me of Doctor Wellington, because Jack and I were discussing him as we scrubbed accumulated grime from from the fabric of a dull yellow Aeronca Champ.

The afternoon had grown late, the warm sun casting longer and longer shadows across the grassed tie-down area when I heard the telephone ringing in the office. I ran inside and picked up the receiver. “Bussell Field,” I panted.

The voice was a bit faint but understandable. “Yes,” the voice said. “This is Doctor Wellington. I, uh, have a little problem,” he began. “I’m nearly out of fuel and I wonder if you could fly down to Tallassee and bring me some gas?”

Two long steps carried me to the wall chart. Quickly locating the strip, I pulled the string to get the distance and the magnetic course to it. “Sure Doc,” I replied. “Will two five-gallon cans do it?”

“Yes, thank you. That will be fine. By the way,” he added, “Tallassee is ‘X-ed’ off. Closed. But, the runway’s okay. There’s a barbed wire fence at each end, but if you land beyond either ‘X’, you’ll clear either one all right.”

“Okay,” I agreed, marking an ‘X’ across the small round Tallassee airport circle on the out-of-date wall chart. “See you in about an hour.”

“Er... please hurry,” he replied. “It’s getting late.”

“Okay, Doc. So long.”

I hurried outside, telling Jack the problem as we ran for the gas pit. He held the second can steady while I pumped it full of eighty-octane. Minutes later, we loaded both cans into the Cessna 150 and taxied out for one-seven, completing the engine run-up while enroute to the end of the runway.

The air was much cooler at three-thousand feet. We had flown about thirty minutes when Jack piped up: “There!”

“Where?”

He pointed and I squinted, finally spotting the long strip of pavement. Sure enough as we drew closer, descending toward the ex-World War II staging field, I could make out big, white ‘X’es painted on the one remaining concrete runway. A wisp of smoke pluming from the nearby power plant stack betrayed the wind direction. I circled to the south.

Seconds later, I began adding flaps, ten degrees at a time, until at sixty-five miles per hour, we crossed the fence, flared over the big ‘X’ and touched down on the long, wide runway. I could have stopped the Cessna in three-hundred feet but I let her roll. The disabled 172 sat parked just off the far end of the runway.

Warm humid air filled the cockpit as I popped open my side window. The sun had become a small red ball sinking into the western horizon.

The Tallassee airport had been converted to an industrial complex. It’s other runways and the taxiways sat covered by warehouse buildings. I shook my head at the waste of a good facility. One day, I thought, you people will be sorry. There was not another good airport within miles.

The doctor and his lady had climbed out of the 172 and were waving at us. I flashed my landing light at them and slowed to a stop some twenty yards from the parked ship.

Jack grabbed a gasoline can and I boosted him up on my knee in front of the right wing. We listened to the doctor’s story while Jack removed the fuel cap and began to pour, all of us well aware of impending darkness.

“Yessir,” he said. “My wife and I left Montgomery about two hours ago. I believe we were going to set a record flying up to Bussell Field. The wind was ...well never mind. When the sun got low in the sky, I pulled the switch for the nav-lights. In just a little bit I noticed that my fuel gauges were showing just under half full. Well, it seemed odd but that’s still more than enough to get up to Bussellville, so I kept going. When I looked at the gauges a bit later on, they showed under a quarter of a tank! That’s when I saw the airport here and decided I had better land.”

He threw his hands in the air. “I thought I might have a fuel leak, but I looked,” he gestured at the wings, “and I couldn’t see anything dripping.”

Jack jumped down. “Guess what, Doc,” he said. “You are almost full of gas. I never half-emptied the can, and it only holds five gallons.”

We listened while he sloshed the gas back and forth, each of us except perhaps the lady realizing that the wing tanks held nearly twenty gallons apiece. The gauges should have indicated more than three-quarters full.

Opening the cockpit door, I reached inside and pulled on the master switch, watching the fuel needles carefully. Each pointer moved slowly away from the ‘E’. Then I pulled the landing light switch: The needles dropped back against the peg.

“Jack”, I shouted. “Did the landing light come on?”

“No,” he replied. “Wait a minute. Yeah, it’s on, but real dim.”

I glanced at the red generator warning light, too dim to see any glow at all.

“That’s it, Doc,” I finished, after explaining he had lost his generator and now had a dead battery. “The fuel gauges are electric, you know. When you turned on the nav-lights, probably had the radio on too..” He nodded. “The current drained even faster and the fuel gauges got weaker and weaker.”

I remembered his wife. She had been standing there listening and when I looked at her, her eyes were a big as saucers. “Anyway, Doc,” I said. “You’re a good pilot, and sure did the right thing. We’ll prop you off. You can make Bussell Field before it gets completely dark if you hurry.”

The doctor and his missus climbed back into the 172. Jack performed the honors on the prop, giving it a mighty swing with all his weight behind it. The engine spun over and fired on the first try. Minutes later, we followed him out onto the wide, wasted runway and watched the faster airplane lift off.

The airport beacon had already begun flashing its white and green welcome as we approached Bussell Field.

Jack brought us in on short final for three-five. The 172 was parked near the office. The doctor and his lady waited by the door. I unlocked it and we all went inside the lounge where I switched on the lights, using the red glow from the coffee urn light to find the pull string.

I saw Mrs. Wellington eyeing the coffee urn. “Coffee anyone?” I asked hospitably.

The doctor’s words were measured. “Mary, you will please stay away from that pot,” he told her.

Turning to me, smiling, he said: “I won’t thank you for offering me your coffee. My Hippocratic Oath prevents that, because it mentions things that deal with human misery, but I will say ‘thank you’ for the rescue.”

Laughing heartily, we shook hands all around. Then, I called the nearby motel.

Driving Doctor and Missus Wellington to the Bussellville Inn in my 1952 Buick Deluxe, I remembered how close she had been staying by his side. Sneaking a quick glance in the rear view mirror, I smiled as I saw him steal a fast kiss. Paying particular attention to the road ahead, I decided that the doctor had earned it. After all, I thought, he had passed his private pilot’s test, taken his wife on her first, long-awaited airplane ride, and bravely had survived his first in-flight emergency, all in the same day.

I figured he stood a good chance to set yet another record later that night.

Who knows? Maybe he did.