Coming down the inky-black ramp to the plane, a gust of cold air blew across the landscape, making me shiver involuntarily. Goosebumps spread like wildfire and made me rub my arms vigorously. A cold front was passing.
Opening the door to the luggage compartment, I quickly rifled through my duffel bags, not remembering if I’d packed a sweatshirt. All he had that was remotely useful was a light Gore-Tex jacket. In the far corner, I noticed something lumpy. Thinking it was a blanket, my hope rose and then was dashed when it turned out to be a pile of oily rags.
Shit.
Dejected that I wasn’t more prepared for something like this, I climbed into the cab, closed the door, and clicked the lock back into place with a resounding click.
Slipping into the passenger seat, I surveyed the makeshift hotel. Paris Hilton certainly wouldn’t have approved. And I wasn’t a contortionist, my widened waist took care of that. But it will.
At first, I stretched out on the front two seats, curling into a fetal position, but when the seat belt buckles jutted out menacingly, I tried lying on my back, then on my stomach. It was like that all night. With each new position, my legs were forced together in very unnatural positions.
Oh my.
This was actually the least of my problems. Not only was I shaking uncontrollably, but I had the sheer audacity to park right next to the rotating beacon, which woke me up every 60 seconds. It reminded me of those prisoner-of-war movies where powerful floodlights swept across the prison yard, spilling light in and out of the darkened bungalows along the way.
Somehow I got the hang of it and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
At dawn, I looked sleepily out of the cabin. What I saw made me think that I had died and gone to heaven.
The entire airport was completely fogged up!
The mist swallowed everything in sight, including the plane’s wings. I knew I wouldn’t be leaving soon.
For three hours, I wandered through the airport, watching the rising sun cut stripes through the fog. It was starting to work its magic because the surrounding tree line, completely covered before, was now coming into view with each passing minute. Looking at my watch, it was 9 am. In another hour, he would take the plane to “look and see” circling directly over the airport and surveying the surrounding area. If there was still fog in the outlying areas, I’d go back down and wait a bit longer.
At exactly 10 am, the “look and see” plan went into action. Moving forward with the throttle wide open, the plane roared merrily and took off into the morning air with hardly a bump. During the ascent, I scanned from left to right. Aside from occasional wisps of mist, almost everything was gone. Relieved, I punched in my local airport identifier (KVLL, formerly known as 7D2) on the GPS and turned on the correct heading.
Within five minutes, my stomach was growling, reminding me that I hadn’t had breakfast yet.
“I’ll be home in another forty-five minutes, you can wait,” I told my stomach.
He growled louder in defiance.
That’s when I remembered that there was an airport down the road that had a restaurant right on the field. I had been there many times and the food was quite good. Why not stop there?
There was a problem.
This airport had a control tower.
“How could I get in, a deaf pilot?” I thought.
As I pondered this, I remembered something someone had said to me on the flight from Kansas. This person told me that by making special arrangements with the tower supervisor the day before or the day of departure, he was able to fly in and out of controlled airports with no problem.
The way he did it was by contacting the supervisor through a special telephone service (from home or from the airport of origin) and asking if it was possible for him to make a landing through a light gun signal (used today in day in cases of radio failure). If the controller were willing to accommodate you, a date, approximate time of arrival and track of use would be agreed upon. When the deaf pilot was in the vicinity of the airport, the tower flashed a powerful beam of green light, giving him permission to land. (There are other lights that mean different things but a green light is what deaf pilots want to see).
As I recalled this conversation, I realized that I had made no such arrangements.
“Oh well, there’s always another time.”
The moment I thought that, a crazy idea was born. I smiled for the first time since that morning.
To be continue……..