Flight Time

 Flight Time 

by Phil Pfenninger

Note:  Phil's mother was Clara Paul Pfenninger, my grandfather Andrew J. Paul's youngest sister.

As long as I could remember, Mom used to say she would never fly. She would keep her feet on the ground where they belonged. If God had meant us to fly, he would have given us wings. 

So, when I started to fly in the army she was very concerned, but when I survived the war, she was somewhat reassured that flying could be safe.  

As soon as I got home for good from the army, I kept asking her when I could take her up for a flight. At long last we set a date. We went to a small airport outside Duluth and rented a small side-by-side plane. 

When I got her strapped in she was nervous but I told her not to worry because we had to taxi out to a take off strip. When we were in position to take off and I got the green light, I revved up the engine. There is a way to take off without changing the plane's attitude so that Mom didn't know when we were airborne. Then she looked out the window and saw we were ten feet in the air. She grabbed my knee and held on tight. 

As we gained altitude off the strip, I noticed a range of hills ahead of us. "In a moment, Mom," I said, "we are going to bump up and down for a moment but don't worry. It is just the wind coming off those hills up ahead." I no sooner said it than we hit the turbulence. Her hand came off my leg and she relaxed. 

"I guess if you can see the bumps in the road, there is nothing for me to worry about.," she said. 

We then had a good ride. When we were over our house I pointed it out to her and did a tight turn around it. The centrifugal force of the turn pressed her into her seat and she felt reassured that she wouldn't fall out of the plane. Later we flew over Lake Superior and I took us down to fly parallel to the shore just a few feet above the waves. She thoroughly enjoyed doing that, not knowing it was illegal to do. 

Coming back to the airport I got careless and when I got the green light to land I was straight above the end of the strip where I was going to land. It was no problem. Without thinking, I did a wingover and headed straight down. Then I remembered Mom! I glanced at her and she had the look of this is the way everybody lands. So, I continued down, pulled out at the right moment and made a smooth three-point landing. I never told her she had gone through an abnormal, dangerous landing for anyone not skilled in landing that way. We used that maneuver all the time in combat so that the Germans couldn't spot our strip.  

[Phil: During World War II, I flew a small single engine plane over the front lines with another officer to observe our artillery fire deep behind the lines. He often directed our battery's fire on any opportune target. I said I did a "wing over" to go down for a landing. What I did was to turn the airplane almost all the way over but when I had the least lift I pointed it straight down. You had to watch the land come up very carefully so you wouldn't pull out too soon and ruin the landing and not too late---BANG. We just learned to do this by ourselves in combat so the Germans could not pinpoint our landing strip. You NEVER did this at a civilian airport except the one time I didn't take time to think.]