Eagle eyes

Flying over the opposite shoreline a quarter mile away with my brother-in-law, I make out the bird’s six-foot wingspan etched against the sky. Losing his silhouette against the tree line, I smile to myself, knowing he spotted us in our open cockpit and the one-inch letters on my cap that spell “AIR CAM.”

I follow our shoreline, noting the wild rice beds below us that once sustained indigenous peoples through long winters. I turn to circle an uninhabited island, inspecting an empty campsite we may check out someday. On the other side of the island, a dark spot above the water catches our attention at one o’clock low. Looking closer, I detect a white tail, then a white crown. The bald eagle has circled back, and now we are off his left wing. We fly together for several memorable seconds as I slowly pass by. He is unperturbed, every bit the regal raptor of his reputation. I am honored and humbled by our good fortune.

Like many, I have always wanted to see beautiful landscapes with a bird’s-eye view. Military jets and vintage airplanes have filled wonderful chapters in the book of my life, but only recently could I experience an eagle’s up close and personal panorama of flight with equal measures of awe and confidence.

Finally, in 2019, I greeted retirement with the purchase of a Lockwood AirCam. Completed by a trusted builder in 2016, I acquired it after an inspection and checkout at the Lockwood factory. I suspect it will fill the final, culminating chapter of my aviation career. I’m OK with that, because the AirCam allows me to fly—an exhilarating experience that countless generations of bird watchers could only dream of.

Today, bald eagles fly over all 50 states, recovering from endangered status and quadrupling in the past 15 years to about 150,000. And AirCams have multiplied to 250 or so, mostly in southern states where warmer temperatures allow open-cockpit flying year-round. I have flown my AirCam from Florida to Wisconsin and from Ohio to Colorado. And I see more than my share of eagles, flying about 50 hours over six months, mostly in northern Wisconsin where we enjoy summers in a lakeside cottage.Occupants in a cabin aircraft have views through window frames that present the world as we are used to seeing it, almost like on television. In an open-cockpit aircraft, the frames are gone, and we are in the scene, not watching it anymore.“It’s an open cockpit, tandem seat, twin, pusher, taildragger,” I say to friends who ask what I fly. To their puzzled expressions, I explain that the renowned Phil Lockwood designed the AirCam to fly photo missions for National Geographic magazine over Africa in the 1990s. The front seat offers an unobstructed vantage point to photograph animals over inhospitable terrain, linger over water holes, and operate from short grass strips in the jungle. What’s not to like, especially in an aircraft with two reliable Rotax engines that can easily fly on one if necessary? 

The thrill of flying like an eagle is seeing as he sees. Not as well, mind you—he can see a rabbit in a field three miles away. But in the AirCam, I have his perspective, and I can appreciate the world around me in dramatically different ways.

In the AirCam’s open cockpit, with the wings behind me and the props behind them, we have unlimited views ahead, around, and below. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, rather like riding on a motorcycle, except there is no road below. Borrowing from Robert Pirsig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, occupants in a cabin aircraft (like a car) have views through window frames that present the world as we are used to seeing it, almost like on television. In an open-cockpit aircraft (as on a motorcycle), the frames are gone, and we are in the scene, not watching it anymore. We feel the air around the clear windscreen, and we experience sights, sounds, and even smells of the world below. The freedom is overwhelming.

From any airplane, we look down on a world that is beautiful in two dimensions, but amazing in three. Like the eagle, an AirCam can fly up to 15,000 feet. But a landscape appearing flat from a high altitude becomes an undulating carpet of colorful shades and shadows from lower altitudes.

When I am flying over a forest canopy stretching in all directions, I sometimes feel like a fly buzzing inches over a woven Berber carpet. 

Up close, crowns of hardwoods resemble the carpet’s textured loop piles. Ridges and valleys formed by eons-old glaciers wrinkle the carpet as if a prehistoric giant stepped heavily in the forested terrain, leaving lakes as footprints. Summertime hues of leafy, green hardwoods turn to the fiery yellows, reds, and oranges of autumn.

Another realm wraps around you when flying low over remote lakes. A smooth surface will reflect whatever sky condition is above, immersing you in an ocean of sky colors. In the calm conditions of early morning or evening, I feel as if I’m flying inside a glorious sunrise or sunset made just for me.

Flying the AirCam a few hundred feet over uninhabited terrain instead of a few thousand, I am low enough and slow enough to interact with the world below. I have surprised an albino buck in a forest clearing. I can identify flocks of tundra swans and sandhill cranes instead of seeing only distant flecks on lakes and fields. I can recognize lighter shades of upturned leaves and the sway of evergreens as signals of a wind shift. Tumbling waterfalls and wild rivers echo the gurgles of melting glaciers. I smell the rich soil in upturned farm fields in spring and the harvests they produce in fall. And I get a wave from the man on his tractor who would never wave at other, higher-flying airplanes.

In addition to brilliant skyscapes, the sun makes large shadows across the landscape when I fly my AirCam. A rare moment of circumstances converged one evening in late July, when the position of the sun, prevailing breezes, and a farmer friend’s grass strip favored me with another AirCam highlight.

Approaching from the west, the east-west strip lined up straight ahead of me as the sun was setting behind exactly at my six o’clock position. Descending eastward toward the farm, I picked up the AirCam’s shadow well ahead of me. It flickered along the dark green trees, hopping over small hills and leading me straight-in to the lighter green of mowed grass that held the strip. The shadow became larger and closer as I continued to descend. On short final, the silhouette of the AirCam slithered over the grass. Wings, nose, struts, and gear became prominent, even my head above the cockpit. Watching the shadow mirror my slight turns, I raised an arm to wave, and the shadow waved back! As I flared, our shadow suddenly stretched, lengthening out down the strip. We became one when the airplane’s wheels finally touched down lightly on those of its shadow. A soft whoooosh in the grass blended with the murmur of wordless wonderment that escaped my lips. 

Bald eagles need open water, often migrating during winter months to find it. My AirCam and I usually hibernate in our hangar and home over winter. But we will all see each other again and share the skies together.

Greg Anderson is a retired air and space museum CEO, EAA executive, and U.S. Air Force pilot with more than 50 years of life lessons from flying. He currently flies a Lockwood AirCam.