When I first flew an airplane, the Douglas DC-3 was still a modern airplane in 1954. You can see from the cockpit picture that the control arm and wheel looked much like a car steering wheel. I would push the control arm forward and the nose would go down. Pulling back brought the nose up. Turning the wheel to the right created a banking turn and then back on course with a turn of the wheel to the left. After I completed my portion of the flight, the stewardess took me back to sit with my parents and pinned a pair of pilot wings on my shirt. I was in heaven and planned to be a pilot — until I went to medical school. On the flight back from Boise, we had some rough air and no one paid attention to me until I got airsick and was introduced to the emesis bag that was stashed on the back of the seat in front of me.
The second picture is of another boy, much like I was, sitting in the left seat of a DC-3 in an air museum. You can tell he hasn't flown a DC-3 because he isn’t wearing pilot's wings.
At one time, Mark Bennion owned a Cessna 182 and fancied himself to be a pilot. One July afternoon, he was doing some instrument certification and invited me to go flying with him for a few hours. He did not know that I had earned my wings fifty years earlier. We flew to Montana, achieving instrument rating requirements. On the way back we circled Andy Dobbs farm near Mud Lake, looking for geese. After we did a wing over above Andy’s home, Mark coaxed me into flying his plane. Mark and I crawled over each other as he took the seat in the back of his Cessna 182 and I got into the left seat — the pilot’s seat. Mark’s flight instructor and corporate pilot, Bob Clayton, sat in the right seat and told me what to do. I was not allowed to touch most of the control levers and buttons, nor was I allowed to drive the radio and talk to the tower -- Bob did that. The chatter between pilot and tower sounded like a foreign language and I could only understand bits and pieces. Level flying was easy -- it was the 90 degree, power-on while descending turn into the final approach that proved to be challenging. I would have done fine if the air controller hadn’t said something about us landing just ahead of an approaching 737. I knew that was a Delta Airlines, Boeing 737 approaching from the south. Then there was the altitude thing. My concentration was on making two 90 degree turns, lining up, slowing to descend, landing, and getting off the runway prior to being plowed over by a commercial airliner. To descend, the power was reduced. Fortunately, I was not in charge of the altitude, but was greatly surprised at how fast the ground had come up at us — we had gone from around 9000 feet to just under 2000 feet without my noticing until I looked out the window. Good grief! I can understand how pilots fly their planes right into the ground. Instead, Bob kept me above the ground until we lined up for the final approach and landed smoothly, and took the first exit to the taxiway. Knowing that a 150,000-pound airliner was not going to land on us took the pressure off. Steering with my feet on the rudder controls, I guided the plane onto the tarmac and over to the hanger. Mark and Bob were cool and relaxed and I was just grateful to be on the ground. They didn’t give me pilot wings or an emesis bag — just kindness and a good time. That was the last time I flew an airplane.
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