On a wonderful sunny day with light winds, and small puffy clouds between 3500 and 5500 hundred feet, I headed out for another day of flight training. It was perfect flying weather.
I was to take off and fly to our practice area, north of our school’s airport, to work on stalls, steep turns, and just about anything else I wanted to do while in the air. My school’s airport was also a A&P school or a ‘Airframe and Powerplant’ school. This is where students not only learned to fly, but also to repair and maintain their aircraft.
I was there for the flying.
Today, I was flying my absolutely favorite aircraft at that time: 4770B (Bravo). This was a healthy little Cessna 152. My normal routine was to check out the aircraft after looking over weather, talk with my instructor about the plan for the day, prep the aircraft, then head out to the practice area.
On this particular day they had installed something new… a headset with a ‘push to talk’ button on the wheel. I actually had a headset now, and boom mic. I didn’t need to pull my hands off the wheel to fly and talk. In the past, I had a sorta ‘Price is Right’ Bob Barker tall mic that clipped onto the cockpit dash. We had an overhead speaker that was turned WAY up so you could hear someone speaking over all of the noise in a small aircraft when flying.
This headset was a vast improvement.
It was a giddy kind of day for me, pulling up in my car, getting out, preflighting the aircraft, and heading out to the blue yonder.
(Very romantic and dramatic… I know.)
The normal process was for me to do a pre-flight check of the cold airplane to make sure fuel, oil, and control surfaces were working correctly. Then I’d jump inside and go through the start-up procedure. Once all checked out, it was time to prime the engine, open the window, holler “Clear Prop!” and turn the key. With the engine idling, I’d go through the running portion of the pre-flight. When I was done and ready to go, I would look and make sure all was clear while the aircraft buffeted a little due to the prop wash coming back from the running engine.
I would then broadcast in the blind my intentions. Here… this takes a little explaining: This is a unicom, meaning we don’t have a control tower. It is visual flight, and we broadcast our intentions, then ‘look’ around to make sure no one is in the pattern (flying around the airport to land), or on the runway ready to take off.
If all is clear, I would broadcast something like, “Sugar Valley unicom, 4770 Bravo taxiing to Runway 19 for a departure to the north… Sugar Valley.”
Then I’d look some more, and start my taxi, while looking more, and making sure everything appears to be working correctly… and look more! 
Once positioned at the end of the runway for take off, I’d check one more time, engine, flaps, fuel, oil pressure, RPM, brakes etc. I do a run up, which is to power the engine up to a certain RPM, check the magnetos, and then I’m ready.
Once I’m good to go, I look again and broadcast, “Sugar Valley Unicom 4770 Bravo departing runway 19 to the north… Sugar Valley,” and off I’d go.
It’s full throttle, give it the beans, pedal correction for torque and take her straight down the runway, 54 to 60 knots indicated airspeed and pull back on the wheel. I’m off the ground and steering to the north. There is really nothing like this feeling! To feel the engine, the pressure on the controls, to see all that is taking place, to be in tune with the airplane itself… it is exhilarating being a part of it all.
So, anyway, off to the north and my practice area. Those that know me now know that I don’t bubble over like I used about things, but back then I did. I was thrilled to be piloting 70 Bravo and I just loved so much of what I was getting to do. It just made me want to sing… about it… out loud… to which… I did!
“Sugar Vaaalley, oh Sugar Vaaalley, I am going to practice Sugar Vaaalley,” …and on I continued. I arrived at our practice area a few minutes later. I looked out the port window (left), made a slow turn to the left, then looked starboard (right), and made a slow turn to the starboard.
Once completed, I slowed down the airplane and pulled it into a shallow climb, letting the air speed drop off. Airplanes have ‘stall warnings” on them. This device allows you to know that more air is passing up the front of the wing verses over it. It makes a whistling sorta sound when air start passing into it. Air flowing ‘over’ creates lift. Air passing in front of it means you are not creating lift thus… you fall. When a stall occurs, the critical angel of attack of the airfoil is exceeded.
If you haven’t gotten the picture yet, think of it like this. In the Latin the word ‘stall’ could be translated as ‘mortius’ which means “you be dead”!
A pilot learns to stall a airplane and then recover from the stall. You need altitude and the ability to push the yoke forward once the stall occurs, while increasing power. It is sorta like a roller coaster, and can be very enjoyable once you get over the terrifying feeling of ‘falling’.
So I was in my ‘zone’ having a ball and singing at the top of my lungs. I felt so empowered by this new headset and I can hear every broadcast on that frequency. So I was singing at the top of my lungs, “I love doing stalls and Sugar Vaaalley… oh… Sugar Vaaalley… up we go and stall… yea Sugar Vaaalley,” …on and on for about 30 minutes. Mind you, my hand wasn’t on the switch so I knew I wasn’t broadcasting.
When the time came, I cleaned the plane up (flaps up), and looked around and made a turn back to the south to head home. I pressed the button on the control wheel and broadcasted, “Sugar Valley Unicom, 4770 Brova is 10 miles north of the field, planning a downwind entry to runway 19… Sugar Valley”.
You spend a great deal of time listening and looking as I said, because there is no control tower. I flew 70 Bravo into a down-wind pattern, meaning the wind is pushing me and I am parallel to the runway with it off my left wing. I broadcasted again, “Sugar Valley Unicom 4770 Bravo is downwind of runway 19 for landing… Sugar Valley.”
I slowed the plane down by pulling the power back (throttle), dropped the flaps 10 degrees, looked, looked, looked, and then broadcast again, “Sugar Valley Unicom, 4770 Bravo is turning my base leg for runway 19… Sugar Valley”. This means I have past the end runway, and turned 90 degrees to my port (left), and continued to slow down, 20 degrees flaps, and loose more altitude.
During all of this time things start to happen fast and you need to be on your toes, ready. I broadcast again, “Sugar Valley Unicom 4770 Bravo is turning for my final approach to runway 19… Sugar Valley”. At this point I am at my lowest and the slowest, which is a critical time. No mistakes, and the earth is getting very close. The world is unwinding like a carpet underneath me. 30 degrees flaps, the aircraft’s nose is slightly high, if power is needed to maintain 54 to 60 knots then use it, line up and touch down. I keep the control wheel back as I apply the brakes and steer my way off the runway. Once landed, I taxi to my parking area to tie down the aircraft.
As I leave the active runway, I broadcast again, “Sugar Valley Unicom 4770 Bravo is clearing the active… Sugar Valley,” and with that I am done. At this point, I park the plane, shut it down, gather my stuff, fill out my log, get out, and tie the aircraft down.
I had an absolutely fantastic instructor by the name of Tom. I have a special affection for this guy because he was the flight instructor that I had the most ‘flight time’ with me. As I recall, he came out to my aircraft, which was unusual, to help me tie it down.
He said, “So how did the flight go?”
“Oh really well. I went north as planned and worked on stalls, steep turns, and slow flight.”
“Really?” he said, “Anything else happen while out today?”
You know that feeling you get when someone knows something you don’t, and they are not letting on? I ‘knew’ he ‘knew’ something, or ‘had something to say’ but wasn’t saying it.
My answer was now a little more cautious. “No… sir… nothing else. Very normal flight.”
He said, “Oh… well I was just wondering. There was this horrible pause when I could just feel it. Something is coming. Then, he broke out singing, “Sugar Vaaalley, oh I love stalls… Sugar Vaaalley…”
I didn’t know what to say because I had never heard Tom sing before. However, I came to a couple of conclusions quickly:
1 – Tom is a fantastic pilot and clearly that was where his time, training and energy went. Not a singing.
2 – That sounded very much like what I was signing while I was out, but how could that be?
Now, my Mom and Dad are smart folks, and you’d think that their brains were passed down to me, but sometimes I think that is not the case.
Tom is looking at me grinning, and I am still in shock that he broke out in song, right there, while standing by the airplane. My wheels are turning and smoke is coming off those tires in my head, trying to figure out how this conversation just went sideways into the absurd, when, in my mind, I saw the hanger door of the shop open and all 30 A&P students pointing at me, laughing, and singing my song.
I popped back to reality praying the nightmare scene wasn’t going to happen.
“Tom,” I said, “how could you know that?”
The mirth in his eyes was just too much. “We forgot to tell you, the transmit button sticks sometime.”
There is was, the proverbial ton of bricks dropped!
“You mean,” I said… and he finished my sentence for me.
”Yep, you’d broadcast your first concert in the sky. Suggestion…Stick with flying would ya!”
It was years before this story left the front page. I would meet someone from time to 
time associated with the airport, and during the normal ‘airplane talk’ they would tell me my story of the idiot pilot flying and singing.
Oh well…
Safe Journeys this week.
