An Infamous Anniversary
A few months ago, I was at the controls of an Airbus 320 flying into Newark Airport. The approach pattern to runway 22-left takes you right over the part of New Jersey where I grew up. We were descending from 5000 feet when I made out my high school. It was the first time I’d seen my high school from the air in almost 20 years. It brought back memories of my last flight in the neighborhood…
On January 29, 1987, I was diving out of 500 feet, not 5000 feet, flying solo in a rented Cessna two-seater. I’d prepared for this flight for months — studying the approaches down the valleys from windows of my classrooms, imagining my first pass over the football field, pulling up and banking hard to come in for another run. I’d applied all my math and physics knowledge studying a book called Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators to learn everything possible about the relation between altitude, airspeed and ideas.
My flight instructor was a former Navy pilot. He’d flown the F-4 Phantom over Vietnam. At the end of our lessons, he’d show me how to do a wingover or we’d make a low pass over something. Those lessons were really fun. He left out a lesson or two, though. Like the old saying: “Buzz Once.”
I buzzed my high school about 15 times over the course of 20 minutes. I guess I was pretty low. They never got the number of the plane when I flew over, but they took pictures of my face. As soon as I landed, I was arrested and taken in the police car to a scary room right next to the jail cells in the police station. The cops took a statement from me and Mom came and took me home. It was a long ride.
My flying lessons were partially paid for by delivering the local newspaper. Since I couldn’t drive at age 16 in NJ, my Mom drove me around and we split the profits from the hundreds of newspapers we distributed. The day after my escapade, Mom was not pleased that my story was the front-page headline.
Dad had gotten in late from a business trip the night of my “incident.” In the morning he was riding his exercise bike when Mom told me to confess. I walked in, said, “Dad, I got in a little trouble yesterday…” and I handed him the newspaper.
He laughed and asked, “Which one of your friends did this?”
“I did, Dad.”
“No, really, was it Sam?” [names changed to protect the innocent]
“No, it was me.”
“Come on, was it Marley?”
Then he looked at me. Then he looked at Mom. Then he stopped smiling. He slammed down the newspaper and left the room. When he came back with a beer in his hand (at 7:00 am), I knew I was in big trouble.
I was prohibited from going to school that day — I didn’t deserve the “glory”. My best friend started a “Save Dave” fund to bail me out of “jail” … I never saw the proceeds of said fund — reputed to be over $50! The police reduced my charge from a felony — reckless endangerment — to disturbing the peace. I had to make a $100 contribution to a charity. (I chose my church youth group.) The real punishment was that I knew I had blown my chance to fly for a living. I was heart-broken.
I went to school for engineering instead of flying. I got my private pilots license my last year of college. After working for 6 years as an engineer, I realized my heart was still in the sky, so I quit my engineering job and took a job flying 30-seat prop planes for Delta Connection. After paying my dues at ASA (aka “Almost Scheduled Airline” since 50% of our flights were late when I was there), I finally got hired by a good company that flies what most people call “real” airplanes. A couple of months ago, I even got to see my high school from the respectable altitude of 5000 feet.
