The Other Side of Me

The Other Side of Me Page 12

Richfield, Utah, was a small town with a population of sixty-five hundred, surrounded by the Monroe Mountains. There was a pleasant hotel on the main street. Following instructions, we cadets checked into our rooms and then returned to the lobby. There were fourteen of us. We had been in the lobby for thirty minutes when a tall, craggy-faced man in uniform walked in. He looked us over.

"Has everyone checked in?"

There was a chorus of "Yes, sir."

"Good. I'm Captain Anderson, your chief instructor. This hotel is fifteen minutes from the airport. A bus will pick you up at six o'clock every morning. Get a good night's sleep. You're going to need it."

And he left.

The following morning we were picked up by an Army bus and driven to the airfield. It was much smaller than I had expected.

Captain Anderson was waiting for us. "Follow me," he said.

He walked over to a nearby building and we followed him inside. The building had been turned into a school, with rooms converted to classrooms.

When we were seated, Captain Anderson said, "You're about to embark on a six-month flying course." He paused. "But because there's a war on, we're going to do it in three months. You're going to have classes in map reading, aerodynamics, weather, navigation, cross-country flight planning, and engine theory. You're going to learn the Morse Code and how to pack your own parachutes. Each class will have a different instructor. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

Our first class was in aerodynamics. The class lasted for an hour. When it came to an end our instructor said, "I'm going to pass out your textbooks on aerodynamics. I want you to answer the questions in each Chapter from one to twenty. That's your homework. Come in with your answers tomorrow. Dismissed."

I riffled through the textbook. There were long questions after every chapter. I would probably be up late.

Our next class was navigation. An hour later, when the class was over, our instructor said, "Take your textbooks and work on pages one to one-fifty. Answer all the questions."

We looked at one another. This was getting to be a heavy load.

The third class was engine theory. It was very technical and I made voluminous notes. When we were finally ready to leave, the instructor said, "Your homework is to read the text and answer the questions from page one to page one hundred twenty."

It was all I could do not to laugh. There was no way to cope with this mountain of homework and we were not through with our classes yet. The last class was parachute packing - a complicated and tedious task to learn, especially after a long day.

We were beginning to understand what Captain Anderson had meant when he said, It's a six-month course, but you're going to do it in three months. I think every cadet was up until four or five in the morning, trying to complete the homework.

Every day the routine was the same. We would finish our classes and go out to the field to become acquainted with our planes. I would be flying Piper Cubs, propeller planes with the instructor and the pupil side by side.

All of us had come here because we wanted to learn to fly, but the homework finally became so onerous, keeping us up till three or four o'clock every morning, that we kept hoping our flights would be delayed so that we could finish the homework.

I had been assigned to Captain Anderson. He watched as I packed my parachute for my first flight and put it on. We got into the plane.

"Observe everything I do," he said.

I watched as Captain Anderson skillfully took off. "You have to remember two important things. Number one is swivel. Keep your head turning all the time, looking around to see if there are any other planes near you. The second lesson is to coordinate your speed with your altitude, so that you're never in danger of crashing."

As we rose higher and higher, I realized that the airfield was completely surrounded by mountains. When we had climbed to seventy-five hundred feet, Captain Anderson said, "Now we're going to do some spins," and the plane began to circle down in quick spins. That was when I learned I had a problem. I got airsick.

Captain Anderson looked at me in disgust. I was flushed with embarrassment.

The following day, we did stalls and cloverleafs and I was sick again.

When we landed, Captain Anderson said, "Did you have breakfast this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"From now on you will not eat anything until lunchtime."

That meant nothing to eat from dinner the previous night until one-thirty the next afternoon.

The first time Captain Anderson had me take the controls, all feelings of airsickness left me. From then on, when I was piloting the plane, I felt wonderful, concentrating on what I was doing.

Every week I called Richard at Gracie's, and Natalie and Marty, to let them know I was all right. Everything seemed to be fine there and I assured them that I was going to be the flying ace of World War II.

One day Richard called. "I have some news for you, Sidney. I just enlisted."

For a moment my heart stopped. He was too young to - and then I realized he was no longer a little boy. I said, "Richard, I'm proud of you."

One week later, he was on his way to boot camp.

Regularly, during our training, Captain Anderson would turn off the ignition without warning.

"Your engine just died, Sheldon. Make an emergency landing."

I looked down. There was no place to land. But I could tell by his expression that that was not what he wanted to hear. I gradually lost altitude, until I could see a suitable place for a landing.

As I started to land, Captain Anderson switched on the ignition. "Good. Take it up."

On the day Captain Anderson said, "You're ready to solo, Sheldon," I was filled with excitement.

"Be sure to coordinate your altitude and speed."

I nodded, strapped on my parachute, and got into the plane, alone for the first time. The other flight groups were watching. I started taxiing down the field and moments later I was in the air. It was a fantastic feeling. A feeling of freedom. A feeling of breaking the bonds of earth and soaring into a new world. A feeling of not getting airsick.

I reached my pattern altitude of sixty-one hundred feet and went through my routine maneuvers.

I had been instructed to stay up in the air for twenty minutes. I glanced at my watch. It was time to show them all what a perfect landing looked like. I pushed the stick forward and began my descent. I could see the men down below, waiting for me on the field.

The rules for landing are fixed. The speeds at set altitudes had been drilled into us. As I got closer to the ground, I looked at the altimeter and suddenly realized that I had forgotten what speed I was supposed to be at. In fact, everything I had learned about flying had instantly gone out of my head. I had no idea what I was doing.

In a panic, I pulled the stick back to gain altitude and keep from crashing. I frantically tried to remember the formula for altitude and speed, but my mind was a blank. If I made a mistake in landing, I would crash and die. I flew around, shaken, trying to figure out what to do. I thought of bailing out, but I knew that the Air Corps could not spare any planes. But I could not stay up here forever. I had to land sometime.

I started my descent again, vainly trying to remember what my airspeed was supposed to be as I approached the runway. Down to a thousand feet, speed sixty miles an hour . . . Three hundred feet, speed fifty miles an hour . . . Was I going too fast? I circled the field three times, getting closer and closer to the ground. Fifty miles an hour. Too fast? Too slow? I took a deep breath and went for it.

The plane hit the ground, bounced up, hit the ground again, bounced up again, and finally settled, as I pulled back the stick and hit the brakes. I got out of the plane, trembling.

Captain Anderson, who had been on his way to town, had stopped when he saw what was happening and sped back to the airfield. He came rushing up to me.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" he demanded.

I was sweating profusely. "I - I don't know. Next time I'll be - "

"Not next time. Now!"

I was confused. "Now?"

"That's right. Get back in that plane and take it up again."

I thought he was joking.

"I'm waiting."

So he meant it. I knew the saying "If you fall off a horse, you've got to get right back on." Captain Anderson apparently felt that the same thing also applied to planes. He was sending me to my death. I looked into his eyes and decided not to argue. I got back in the plane and sat there to control my breathing. If I died, it was going to be his fault.

Everyone was watching as I taxied down the runway.

I was in the air again. I tried to relax and concentrate on remembering everything I had been taught about speed, altitude, and flight angles. Suddenly, blessedly, my mind started to clear. I stayed up for another fifteen minutes and this time I was ready. I made an almost perfect landing.

As I stepped out of the plane, Captain Anderson growled, "That's better. You'll do it again tomorrow."

The rest of my flight training went without incident except for one memorable day near the end of the course.

That morning, as I was about to take off, Captain Anderson said, "We have a report that there's a bad storm heading this way, Sheldon. Keep an eye out for it. When you see it coming, land immediately."

"Yes, sir."

I took off, reached my altitude, and began circling around the mountains, going through my spins and stalls. There's a bad storm heading this way . . . When you see it coming, land immediately . . .

What if I were caught in it and couldn't see a place to land? I visualized the headlines: "Pilot Trapped in Storm."

The news would be on the radio and television. The world would be holding its breath to see whether the young cadet made it safely or not. The landing field below me would be swarming with ambulances and firefighting equipment. I was completely caught up in my daydream, enjoying my bravery in the face of this great disaster, when it suddenly grew dark. The reason it grew dark was that my plane was in the middle of the storm. I was flying blind, surrounded by ominous black clouds. I could not see the airfield or anything around me. All I knew for certain was that on every side of me were unforgiving mountain peaks and I could crash into one of them at any second. I had lost all sense of direction. Was the airfield ahead of me? Behind me? To the side of me?

The wind began to bounce the plane around. The headlines I had been daydreaming about were becoming real. In an effort to avoid the mountains surrounding me, I started to fly in very small circles, going lower and lower, bouncing around, trying to stay in the same safe area. When I got down to thirty feet, I could see the airfield. The whole crew was down there, watching.

When I landed the plane, my instructor came up to me, furious.

"What's the matter with you? I told you to watch out for the storm."

"Sorry. Yes, sir. It crept up on me."

I got my wings exactly three months after I had arrived in Richfield.

Captain Anderson called us all together. "You're ready for training in multiple engine planes, BT-19s and DAT-6s. Unfortunately, at the moment, the advanced flight schools are all full. So you're going to be on standby. There could be openings at any minute. You don't have to stay here while you're waiting, but leave a phone number with the sergeant where you can be reached, day or night.

"The minute we have openings for an advanced flight school, we'll be in touch with you. Good luck."

And the thought that came into my mind was Ben Roberts. I decided that while I waited for a flight school to open up, I would go to New York. I made a reservation at a hotel in Manhattan and gave the telephone number to the sergeant. I had a feeling that the minute I arrived in New York, there would be a message ordering me to return.

I said goodbye to my fellow fliers, and that afternoon I was on a plane to New York, to see Ben.