I waited all year for my two weeks of home leave. But things got truly toxic at the office, many folks were off fishing or cruising, and I had to go back to work. Meetings abroad on Christmas week, conference calls on New Year’s Eve.
I did fly for two days, with friends. In the first week of 2012, I called Carlo and told him I was tired of flying with passengers. I wanted my copilot.
On the ground, Carlo is not the most graceful person (some of his university students may dispute that). I tease him about being the second clumsiest person I know.
In the airplane, Carlo morphs into an artist. He starts as a conductor — meticulously procedural as he tunes the airplane for flight. At takeoff, Carlo slips past the curtain of ground haze and ascends to an aerial stage, bands of light and shadow wheeling around the cockpit.
Responding to his fingertips, the airplane pirouettes, the engine sings, the instruments wind through orchestrated scales and bars. The horizon dips, leans and rolls. Straight and level is for train drivers; Carlo and I FLY.
In past years we pushed north to the Cordilleras and tracked coast-to-coast across Luzon. This year we performed our repertoire at home. Polishing, not exploring. Stalls, over and over until they became pitch-perfect poetry. Arcing chandelles, twisting 400 feet higher in a single 180-degree turn.
For two days we exercised the airplane vigorously, getting 720 kilograms of aluminum, fuel and father-son airborne from just half the runway. An hour of aerobatic adagios and petite allegros specially choreographed for the Cessna 152 followed. Then, as an encore, we touched down softly on the threshold, wake vortices applauding.
All too soon, the flying days were over. It was time to go back to the crush of email, conference calls, lesson plans and research papers.
Memories of our flights are starting to fade as I return to Bangkok. They will never leap off these pages as intensely memorable flights, laced with glamour or punctuated with drama.
Instead, our aerial art, nearly a month ago now, was a tapestry of emerald green rice fields, friendly radio calls from pilot friends and readers who recognized our voices on 118.70 Mhz, and our own giddy laughter as we banked into 2G turns 1,500 feet above Earth, a million miles above its travails.
“I’ll do the next one, Dad.”
”I have it, Carl.”
”Dad, I’m already on it.”
”My airplane.”
”I have control, Dad.”
”Let go, Carl … .“
So I honor the memories of those flying days as healing days. Father and son days. The medicine will wear away, in the years to come.
“I’ll take the left seat, Carl.”
”Dad, we’ll put you in the right seat.”
”Left seat. And call me ‘Captain.”
”Here you go, Dad, right seat, don’t kick the wheelchair.”
”This is the copilot’s seat, this is for wimps!”
”Yes, Dad.“
Posted from Bangkok, January 22, 2012
Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭禧發財
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Tonet,,,
Happy Chinese new year !!!
Wish you, your family and all the aviators all the best for the year of Dragon !!!
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Timo, Happy New Year, and Gong Xi Fa Cai to you and your loved ones!!
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http://www.avweb.com/blogs/insider/AVwebInsiderBlog_RunwayLossOfControlIncidents_HighRiskTraining_206037-1.html
while reading that link above, i can’t help feeling as if i was reading FiC. while you guys might be having fun, the side-benefit is polishing skills.
in effect, what you guys are doing are “pure celebration of skill” and “proficiency flying”.
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Thanks, Louie! Carlo, for one, is always looking for a crosswind runway opportunity. And a chance to land on runway 26 at Woodland, which is quite daunting because there is no go-around, because of the trees at the departure end. More on this on another post!
I hope you are well. Have not heard from you for a long time.
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Another nice read as always,Tonet.
To the father and son team a Happy New Year!!!
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Happy Birthday to your Father and Son team too, Tim! And the rest of the family 🙂
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You really write beautifully! Just curious, do you have another blog where you write about your other sons, and about adventures other than flying? I would like to read them.
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You really write beautifully! Just curious, do you have another blog where you write about your other sons, and about adventures other than flying? I would like to read them, if I may.
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Hi Harvey, thanks for the kind words.
I can’t even write often enough for this blog, to keep it as active as I would want to. Another blog would be really hard to sustain. That said, I do have a couple of articles here on Julio and David, written on their birthdays. I particularly like those articles. Here they are:
https://tonetcarlo.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/king-david/ This article is very, very special to me, Harvey. David has taught me some of the most valuable lessons in life. And he doesn’t even know it.
https://tonetcarlo.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/the-family-jules/ All about how I try to get back at Jules all the time, for his allowance.
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It looks great, I think a black munio-fulctitnal tube is something every girl should own. I bet you could wear is as a really voluminous scarf come wintertime, too.
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I didn’t realize that the North Rim is a lot different than the South Rim, It sounds like you made an excellent choice! I love that the Lodge was right at the edge like that — awesome!
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