Sweet Home Alabama

Little Planes

Son number two’s first flight in a private aircraft began with the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles flight experience, which led to several classes at the small executive airport near our home.  The final class ended with the youngsters riding shotgun in the co-pilots seat of a private, four-seat aircraft, flying and landing at three different airstrips in the region.  Small aircrafts do not frighten me, but I also rarely travel in them.  In fact, his two flights (technically four flights counting each taxi and landing) are two times (or is it four times) more small-scale aircraft flights than I have experienced.

In fact, for all my travels, I have only flown upon two aircraft that could even remotely be considered “puddle jumpers.”  The first one, on Christmas Day, counted the shorter of two flights to get to Minnesota for the holiday.  In my personal opinion, any airplane that still operates with the assistance of propellers, regardless of how many passengers occupy the aircraft, is a small plane.  The flight wasn’t terribly long, but nonetheless, when the ground crew at Hartsfield International Airport wheeled steps up to our plane, I knew that counts as either a small plane or a small airport.  And anyone who has flown through the Georgia capital knows, the airport does not qualify as petite.

One By Two

I consider myself quite knowledgeable about my home airport.  I know where the best parking is, I dine where I can grab the tastiest or fastest food, and I tend to move through security swiftly without much delay.  Knowing the busy season and the hectic times, and by avoiding them whenever possible, certainly helps my travel routine.  But on one occasion, I arrive near my departing gate only to discover that the number I need is not down any of the three hallways to my right, my left, or straight ahead.  Instead, an elevator descends to a hallway tucked under the tramway guiding me to the smallest of planes to take me to the largest of cities in Alabama.

My assigned seat, while being the most forward on the plane of any other passengers, by no means lands me in first class, however, on the upside, my seat offers me both a window seat and an aisle seat.  Yes, the Embraer plane features one seat wide on the pilot’s side of the plane, and two seats wide on the co-pilot’s side of the plane.  A southern gentleman greets me as I board; he’s a one-man service crew, literally.  But as we land in Birmingham, he welcomes us to our destination, he rises to begin the deplaning, and he places a compact disc into a mini music player. The entire cabin fills with the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd singing proudly about “Sweet Home, Alabama,” providing entertainment all the way to the gate.  Sometimes smaller is sweeter.

Forty Years On An Airplane

My First Flight

The first time I flew on an airplane in Summer 1973, my mother dressed us appropriately for a semi-cross continental excursion: long, pastel dresses for us girls, my Dad in a necktie and sports coat.  We climbed the exterior staircases, carrying a small token of a toy for entertainment during the 2.5 hour flight.  If we remained on our best behavior for the duration, the stewardesses would provide us with a small pin to remind us of our voyage.  We would have earned our wings.  Best behavior meant not asking for a complementary deck of cards, it meant not dropping food in our laps as we ate our meals, and it meant sitting in our seats and not getting up for any reason, even to use the on-board lavatories.

Flying in the early 1970s also meant departing from the old, brick terminal at Sky Harbor Airport.  We had only lived in the Grand Canyon State for about eighteen months, yet we had visited the terminal several times to pick up Dad from his business travels.  Sometimes we would arrive early and go out to the gate to meet him; sometimes we would change into our pajamas and just pull up curbside when he had late evening arrivals.  I remember driving down Interstate 17 and curving onto the Black Canyon Freeway, and I never remember there being any traffic.  Travel felt different then, even if I simply came along for the ride.  And when I finally boarded a plane, I felt like royalty.  And I dressed and acted accordingly.

Flash Forward

I am inflight now, and I see a completely different view.  Kicked under my seat are my flip flops.  On my tray table, a simple bag of peanuts, and I fork over the additional cost for a Corona.  The flight attendants – the majority of whom are men – wear shorts and polo shirts.   My son sits next to me, jeans and t-shirt, much like every other passenger.  Last time the two of us flew together, we sat astride on two aisle seats, but he got the better deal.  On the window beside me, a woman tucked her dog in a nylon tote under her seat, and between us her boyfriend used his soft drink can as a make-shift spittoon.  It’s a different caliber of passenger, with a different level of service, and a different in-flight experience.

But think about what else has changed.  This flight includes LED mood lighting to ease the transition from taxiway, to airborne, to landing.  I am Wi-Fi enabled and can play solitaire, not with the complimentary deck of cards, but on the in-flight gaming system.  The movie audio isn’t piped in through headset air tubes, but is electronically connected, along with a full selection of television channels and movies.  I communicate with the ground via email, or I can post a video of myself and the view out the window.  With GPS I can track my flight, see over what landmarks I am flying, and receive real-time speed and distance measurements.  This is a new era of air travel, less formal, but far more functional; planes are more snug, but letting go of the traditions of the past helps us move towards a better life and a more effective journey from Point A to Point B.  I recall a flight abroad in the early nineties where the back third of the plane contained the smoking section, as if the smoke confined itself to those rows.  I like the changes in the past forty years.  Now, if only we can get rid of the smokeless tobacco, too.

In-Flight Homework

Variables

It’s a long flight to Germany from the U.S. and inevitably passengers travel on the red-eye to arrive in Europe at daybreak.  The vast majority of wise passengers settle in for a restful slumber to deplane as refreshed as possible.  Ideally, those sitting in first class are quite well rested, but when sitting in the center of the five seats across the middle of the plane, sleep is a relative term.  For the fortunate, there is Ambien; for the less fortunate, there is algebra.

I resumed my college studies after a far longer hiatus than anticipated.  Motivated by the desire to change my circumstances and escape the struggles of dying dysfunction, college math became the first step towards an alternate life path.  My first college held little appeal, although a degree required no courses in the mathematics department.  Now my life held many variables, including an unexpected trip stateside, and if I had to study a few of them in textbook form to get to a better life, I would suck up the long flight and the pages of Xs and Ys to land somewhere better, and definitely with a better seat assignment.

Bibliography

More than a decade later, I again find myself completing homework in flight.  Thankful for the aisle seat, I must remind myself to tolerate the noise as the adjacent, sideways galley challenges my concentration.  And the oblivious passenger ahead of me fully reclines the seat against my laptop as I busily try to finish my research paper.  Another unexpected business trip lands during the last week of the semester, and the final term paper, scribed in between west-coast appointments, needs only complete, specifically formatted reference pages to meet the submission deadline when I return to the east coast.

As I struggle to type in the most awkwardly repetitive-stress-injury posture, I keep my focus on my deadline, not just for the paper, but for my degree.  It has taken, almost to the day, fifteen years of sporadic study, mixed with child-rearing, single-parenting, bi-coastal juggling, and career-hopping to reach the end of the academic road.  But with the bibliography complete, wheels touch down on the aspiration to raise my boys, complete my degree, and step into a better life.  Only now do I realize that the road I have been following for all these semesters didn’t lead me to the escape I needed, it became the change of scenario I had been pursuing.  And all without the benefit of a window seat.

Airborne

In the moment when the plane revs its engines and begins its forced acceleration from a dead stop at the far end of the runway, the passengers feel the excitement of takeoff.  Glancing out the window, the queue of planes waiting to depart rush past, followed by the terminals and the flock of planes gathered around its edges like ducks at a pond. Then comes the moment where the plane lifts away from the pavement and is airborne.  Like the moment of birth, this forward rush, both literally and figuratively is the moment when the adventure begins.  The months of preparations and planning and excitement and anticipation before this actual moment arrives become real in less than sixty seconds of forward thrust.  The moment when the plane effortlessly releases its connection to the runway and ascends into the sky marks the moment when vacation is truly underway.

You Go, Girl

Don’t Count Your Chickens

An evening flight into St. Louis – that’s all I want.  I have flown over the Gateway Arch at dusk several times, but I imagine the airline has changed its itineraries since my last evening arrival.  My final destination lies across the Mississippi River, so I opt for a flight to Chicago with an early morning train the next day.  Having experienced Amtrak (see “Overnight On The Amtrak” from April 2012), I am game for a three-hour ride on the Lincoln Service to the Illinois capital, and a good night’s sleep in the City of the Big Shoulders couldn’t hurt either.

But after three hours in the airport waiting for a possible departure time, I eagerly board the last flight of the night.  The pilot brags that the airplane has been loaded with just enough fuel for an expeditious flight after an evening of delays courtesy of summer storms in the Windy City.  She even counts the flight out to the exact number of minutes ensuring her signing our jinx warrant.  About two-thirds of the way towards our destination, the flight attendants serve a big slice of humble pie to the passengers on behalf of the captain announcing the flight needs to swing out west of Chicago to avoid the weather heading eastward, but the plane does not have enough fuel to make that happen.  Instead, we are going to fuel up in St. Louis.

Where I Want To Be 

To be frank, I have no business piloting any aircraft because wind speed, lift, yaw, and all those other aerospace terms do not sink into my head, and the advanced algebra needed to figure out those high-tech equations are too much for me.  But I do know it is advisable to have enough fuel to circle an airport just in case of situations like this.  I expect the eager flight crew, quite possibly based in Chicago, hoped to be home on a Friday night, too.  In fact, the flight would not make it to Chicago for another five hours after touching down in St. Louis.  My skills as a driver and the simple math required to operate an automobile tell me that the driving distance to

Chicago from St. Louis equals roughly five hours.  Irony makes me chuckle.

When we land at Lambert Field, I expect a fuel truck to meet us near the terminal, and then send us on our way, so when we taxi to a gate and the plane doors open, I see the writing on the fuselage that this would be a longer stop than originally communicated.  The flight attendants, most likely still embarrassed at having to cover for the pilot’s shortsightedness, hide around the bulkhead just peeking out when they absolutely must, like when I press my call button for example.  The look of irritation as the flight attendant approaches seems obvious.  When I explain that I really want to be in St. Louis, but the airline had no evening flights, she asks if I want to get off the plane.  I jump at the chance.  After confirming I have no checked luggage, she lets me exit the aircraft to the dismay of every other passenger.  I unbuckle my seat belt with a less-than-official, “You go, girl,” from the flight attendant.  And I do, since this is where I want to be anyway.