I'm going to tell you a story. It meanders a bit, so bear with me. This goes back to my first days of flying, in fact, to the first page of my first logbook. That first page says that I flew a fleet of Piper Colts at Lee Airport in Annapolis, Maryland, back in the summer of 1990. I was 19 years old, and every dime I earned went into the fuel tanks of those Colts.
The Colt by then was an airplane well past its time: a fabric-covered two-seater, with a welded-steel fuselage, a small engine, and no flaps. It has short wings, which means that its descent rate once you pull the power can get downright frightening. Instead of toe brakes, it has a bar under the panel that you pull on to slow the airplane on rollout, which you do in a sort of half-bent-over position that isn't real conducive to safety.
Of course, to me, all this was just part of the fun. My instructor and I got along fabulously, and I soaked up everything he told me.
The radio in the plane was anything but modern. I remember that my instructor and I had to rig up his portable intercom in order to talk to each other. I can recall that we were not always sure that we were actually transmitting, which at the very least spared people from having to listen to my poor, student-quality radio transmissions. Air conditioning was nonexistent. The paint was faded and the seats torn. The cockpit had a smell like tool oil, strong but very sweet. But it was an airplane, and I was flying it. I loved it.
I moved on from those early Colts to other Piper and Cessna aircraft. My introduction to flaps was a big deal since I hadn't had them before. I went from an airplane that had the master switch under the seat to one that had not just a master switch, but also an avionics master. I went from student pilot to private, instrument, commercial, multi-engine, and CFI.
Along the way, I began to realize how small the aviation world can really be, in spite of how big the world around it is. I met a lot of people and flew a lot of airplanes. I met people who were pilots long before I was. I hadn't known they were pilots, but that common denominator suddenly gives two strangers much to talk about. I saw the connections of my instructors and my bosses that went back years. The value of networking in this business was obvious.
In 1995, I was a CFI when I made my second trip to Oshkosh, for the annual summer aviation pilgrimage otherwise known as EAA AirVenture, which draws 12,000 airplanes and 700,000 visitors to Wisconsin to swim — drown — in all things aviation for a week. Normally this trip would have been just another person going to another Oshkosh gathering. But there is nothing like walking along the flight line and seeing an airplane you've flown. In this case, it was a Cessna 172 that a flight school where I taught had on a leaseback contract. The airplane was immediately recognizable, the dark-blue trim standing out from the white paint, nice and clean. The airplane was being used as a platform to sell floats. I couldn't get to the airplane, N98936, because it was in the process of being moved to the lake nearby where the seaplane festivities take place. I could only imagine what the journey had been for that airplane after it left the Bay Bridge Airport in Stevensville, Maryland.
In the same period that I was teaching full time at Bay Bridge, two other instructors were also building hours. One of them was a friend of mine, the son of a captain for United Airlines. He'd had a late start in professional aviating, but he was enthusiastically catching up. We had a friendly rivalry, and even though he got a few breaks before I did, I liked him, and I was happy for him. Mark Koenig was his name.
The other instructor I didn't know. He was based at Martin State Airport outside of Baltimore. Because Martin is a towered airport and the Class B airspace around Baltimore often is congested, the instructors would bring their students outside of the controlled airspace for some of their work. Bay Bridge is a popular airport for practicing landings because it is a busy nontowered airport, the crosswinds are steady and unpredictable without being dangerous, the runway is short, and it is a short flight from several larger airports. A number of airplanes from different airports came and went on a daily basis. Most of them I recognized by color and call sign, and a few were known to be from certain fields. A few of the voices on the radio became familiar as belonging to instructors. Some stayed for a while, and some left. One of them went to American Eagle, based in New York, to fly the Saab 340. He later went to Midway Airlines, where he flew the right seat of a Boeing 737.
In 1996, I went to Comair, and Koenig went to Chautauqua Airlines, to fly Saabs in the Midwest. I kept in touch with some of my old colleagues, and I made new ones. On trips home, I would again fly the airplanes I had spent so many hours teaching in, this time purely for fun. The occasional communication with some of my friends became more sporadic, and with others it stayed steady. Koenig bumped into a mutual friend at Comair in a crew hotel, sent me his regards, and I haven't heard from him since. Rumor has it that he quit flying. I hope not. If you know what happened to him, say hello.
On a trip in 2001, to Clarksburg, West Virginia, my passengers got an unexpectedly sudden stop on the taxiway. There, parked on the ramp, was an old 172, N734TY. I'd spent some time teaching in it. It was a great airplane, flew well. I used that airplane to fly my wife on a surprise trip for our second wedding anniversary to Tangier Island, Virginia, in the Chesapeake Bay. It was one of our most enjoyable vacations. We were struggling, as most young couples do, and money was tight, but it was a great trip. Here again was that airplane, soldiering on. Son of a gun.
In 2001, that instructor from Martin State Airport was out of work when Midway went out of business (the first time) after September 11, 2001. He was one of about 50 Midway pilots who came to Comair. I flew with him shortly after he finished training. It wasn't long before we put together the connection. We had flown together, in a way, sharing the traffic patterns and taxiways at the airports on Maryland's Eastern Shore. We had probably been next to each other on a run-up pad at some point, undoubtedly had given each other position reports on the radio. Probably sworn at each other at times.
Yet it took a rather circuitous route for us to actually meet. His first airline job was with Eagle, which led him to Midway. A strike at Comair was tough for me, but it can't compare to your company going under. Yet because of that course of events, Barry and I finally met. It was an easy rapport from the start. We flew over our old haunting grounds, not at our expense but courtesy of a four-day trip with Comair, telling war stories and sharing some laughs. We had some mutual friends and some mutual not-so-friends. Sometimes two people can travel a lot of miles and be right next to each other without ever knowing it. Our first trip as an airline crew was too short.
In the spring of 2003, my wife, Lisa, and I went to Sun 'n Fun EAA Fly-In, the "other" big airshow, which takes place in Lakeland, Florida, every year. It's sort of the unofficial kickoff to summer for pilots. It's not as big as Oshkosh, but it's still huge. The goal this year was to just enjoy looking at some of the airplanes, experience some centennial-of-flight celebrations, and buy some materials for the airplane we are building.
We had just left one of the exhibit buildings and were walking to the flight line when I saw it. I was stunned. A Piper Colt, N4515Z, was right there. I stared, sweeping through the cobwebs of memory. For the second time, I had run into an airplane at an international airshow that I had flown. I was speechless as we walked over to the airplane. Finally, with Lisa asking me what was going on, I told her that I had flown a lot of hours in this airplane. It was the third Colt in the fleet that I had flown.
All the years between then and now went away. I could remember using a Coke bottle to drain the fuel. I remember running my hand along the tattered seams of the fabric. This fabric was new. The airplane had been totally restored. The old, beat-up, and patched fabric was gone. Shiny new tires replaced the well-worn and scuffed ones I had beaten into oblivion. The paint scheme was different. It was cream-colored, with red trim, no longer dirty white and dirtier teal. The seats were leather, with no holes, and they sat on brand-new carpet.
But this was it. I'd flown this airplane. The instrument panel was still bare, except for the new VFR GPS. The hand brake was there. I felt under the pilot seat and the master switch was in the familiar location. And the smell. That new interior could not hide that sweet, strong, tool-oil smell. Perfect. The door had the same swing, the same squeaky groan, the same click. Some things cannot be changed no matter what. Nor should they be.
I talked to the owner. The airplane was now being used as a display for an engine-installation package. An airplane that I probably could have had for $10,000 a few years ago was worth $40,000. It had made its way to an owner in Indiana before the current owner, from Tennessee, bought it and restored it. Maryland to Indiana to Tennessee to Florida at 100 mph. Never was a speed burner. Had it been $20,000, I would have bought it on the spot.
So many years, so many airplanes, so many people. I've made a lot of friends, some for life. Some have died, including my first instructor who was killed in an accident at Lee Airport. Some — airplanes and people — I've lost touch with. But so many keep coming back. Like the popular "six degrees" game, it isn't hard to put together connections of people and airplanes you meet along the way.
We put my daughter, my firstborn, in the airplane, and took her picture. It was the right thing to do. Piper Rose Wright, my precocious 2-year-old, was, after all, named after the Piper Colt, the first airplane her daddy ever flew.
She made airplane noises and turned the wheel. She looked at me, and then at Lisa, and back to me. Then she smiled. So did I.
Charles "Chip" Wright, AOPA 1086994, of Hebron, Kentucky, is a Canadair Regional Jet captain for Comair. He has accumulated 5,700 hours in 13 years of flying and is currently building a Van's RV-8.
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