These Wings Were Made For Flying

I have a semi-fictional story to tell you. Fictional in the sense that I changed the proper names but most of it is pretty factual :) So without further adieu, I give you: "Warrior"

Hope you enjoy this... I'm going to try to get it published and maybe have a read at McNally Robinson Polo Park wearing a red smoking jacket and a monocle by the fireplace.

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The altimeter read 2,300 feet and climbing at 500 feet per minute. In that brief moment of time, on that clear sunny day, everything was in its place and things could not have been better. For Max, getting the Warrior safely off the ground was just one of the things on his agenda. Today, he would be climbing at an altitude of 8,000 feet over the small town of Vita, 25 miles northeast of Budapest to practice his upper air work, in preparation for his first cross country solo flight.
…
Max Paluzski was enrolled in one of Hungary’s top flight schools, András Aviation Academy, accredited for its safety record and noted for its world class pilots who were able to find jobs internationally. A select number of students were chosen each year to attend its specialized program. Selection was based on rigorous aptitude testing, behaviourial testing, stress management testing, and a final interview. Successful candidates went through a final test where they were put in an aviation simulator that recorded their reactions to potentially dangerous situations while flying at a speed of 170 knots – the equivalent groundspeed of 311 km/h.
Max was one of the lucky ones. Every year, the academy accepted 150 new students to their highly advanced training program. Thousands apply each year and only those who displayed the exemplary skills and potentials were accepted. Max had been dreaming of getting into the academy since graduating high school. His parents’ death from a tragic accident when he was 16 years old had made an indelible impact in his life that he needed to prove to himself he could do anything he set out for himself to accomplish. And completing the flight program at András Aviation Academy is one of them.
Growing up, Max Paluzski never once thought he’d be enjoying the sun’s warmth inside the cockpit of a Cessna Piper Warrior cruising at 100 knots. As a child, Max dreamed a lot. He dreamed of being a doctor curing diseases; a fireman putting out flames; a businessman owning one of the biggest franchises on earth; and amongst these boyhood dreams was to become an airline pilot, touring and exploring the world. Max was sheltered from the outside world; was raised in Bulacan, a small town in the countryside, 45 miles southeast of Riga, Latvia. His parents, both teachers in the local elementary school, taught him the values of hard work, perseverance, and humility. Max only saw the outside world through pictures and heard about other townsfolk’s experiences through their stories. His dreams and ambition were his only connection to the world outside Bulacan. It was something that, at the end of the day, he could escape to; without having rules or boundaries.
…
As the vertical speed indicator reached his desired climb speed of 900 feet per minute, Max opened the throttle to 2500 rpm, leveling off the Warrior at its ideal cruise setting. As he checked the cockpit’s gauges, he looked out the window caught a glimpse of the ground below him. Straight lines outlined perfect squares and rectangles of land that stretched as far as the eyes could see. The roads that lined the plots of land ran perfectly along the four cardinal points as if designed by Mother Nature. There were no two sections of earth that were alike. Each one had its own distinct colour and topography. The lighter ones in shade were farmlands inhabited by families and their livestock. The sections darker in shade were coloured by the trees and bushes that occupied the space. Max knew that in the unfortunate event of an emergency, landing staying away from the darker shaded land increased his chances of landing the plane safely and surviving an emergency situation.
As Max turned his attention back to the dials inside the plane, he was reminded of an experience he had a month ago that could have ended his training at the academy. As a prerequisite before being able to fly solo in the Warrior, students had to perform and get out of dangerous situations airplanes could fall into. One of them was called the spiral. When a plane’s nose was slightly pointed down, and its wing banked on one side, the plane could easily slip into a spiral maneuver. This was experienced as the plane spiraled in a circular motion, still upright, gaining speed as it got closer to the ground. If an unwary pilot did not realize the situation he was in, the control stick eventually gets too hard to pull, too difficult to correct and would cause the plane to crash crushing its passengers instantly due to the great speed upon impact. To get out of the spiral, the pilot must act quickly. Closing the throttle would put the engine on idle then he must straighten the wings to its neutral position while pulling the nose of the plane back up to level with the horizon. Max barely got out of the last spiral he put himself in and realized after that quick reflexes was a pilot’s best quality. After landing the Warrior, he took a second to pray and thank God for keeping him safe. It was another experience to learn from nonetheless.
The altimeter reading was now at 8,400 feet above sea level. The vertical speed indicator showed a climb rate of 50 feet per minute. Max overshot his target altitude by 400 feet. He closed the throttle and pointed the nose down to lose the extra height. As he descended, he quickly scanned the outside surrounding for traffic including other aircraft and birds flying into his path. His instructor warned him about birds. At that speed and altitude, the damage of a bird hitting the plane was equivalent to the damage of a wrecking ball smashing into a brick wall. Once clear, he set the throttle back to cruise speed of 2500 rpm. Max did another cockpit scan for his gauges. He checked the airspeed. He checked the altimeter; now at 8,000 feet. He checked the rpms and the vsi again. Then, he did a quick scan outside the window before his radio call.
“Budapest control, this is Cessna Piper Delta Tango Alpha. Current position is two miles south of Vita at 8,000 feet doing upper air work. Delta Tango Alpha.”
Within half a second of Max’s radio call to dispatch, he began his final maneuver into the spin. He grabbed the throttle, cutting engine power. He pulled the knob out for carburetor heat to keep the engine warm. As he pulled the control stick back as far as it could go, the buzz of the stall horn came on indicating a nose dive was imminent. Perfect entry he thought. As the nose pointed toward the ground below him, he threw in full right aileron bank putting the Warrior in a full, perpendicular downward spin headed straight to the ground. With a half-smile, Max loudly recited the maneuvers to correct the situation he imposed on himself:
“Full right rudder. Straighten wings. Pull up!”
As the Warrior stabilized to straight flight, he slowly added engine power and turned off the carburetor heat. He executed the commands flawlessly. The only way to survive an airplane in a spin was to do all the commands in the right order, in the right timing. Max ended the exercise with another radio call. He announced his altitude at 6,500 feet flying westbound with a location two miles of south of Vita. After getting his bearings, he headed back to base just in time for lunch.
…
Upon entering the room, the immediate aroma of ketchup filled the air. For any lunch time, the smell of ketchup meant two things: French fries and grilled cheese. The lineup for food was long, as Max had expected. At twelve thirty, the cafeteria was the only place any student should be. As Max jumped in line, he spotted Rikard Penner and Andreas Campbell at the condiment station. Rikard and Andreas was busy talking about their morning flight as they ladled ketchup on their French fries. Max yelled out their names and swiped two grilled cheese sandwiches and some fries onto his plate and caught up with the boys at the table.
Sitting at the table were the three student pilots who had been friends since the first day of school. As they enjoyed the greasy lunch, Max recalled meeting Andreas in dorm. Andreas and Max met in the dormitories where they were assigned roommates. Rikard shared a room at the end of the hall with a quiet fellow from China named John Lau. While in Jansen Hall, in the east wing of the Bergen Hall dormitory, Max made a few friendships that he didn’t know would cultivate into something more meaningful. The three were all enrolled in the advance program of aeronautical acrobatics and together found a commonality amongst them; a sense of community, a brotherhood. Yet, it was at the cafeteria table, that same corner table by the far wall where the three had the chance to catch up and talk about their day. As loud chatter from the other students at the other tables filled the room, Rikard, Andreas, and Max talked about their morning by discussing the difficulties of the exercises and the requirements that need to be fulfilled before finally being permitted to go on a cross-country solo flight in the Warrior. Rikard admitted he needed more practice with spins while Andreas, being the more advance of the three said the slow flight exercise was really easy. Max found his skill level between Rikard and Andreas. He found some of the exercises as difficult as Rikard described but was also quick to learn like Andreas. Being all 24 years old, the three were inseparable; when one ate, all three ate. When one slept, all three slept. All of them even shared the same love for Halo 3, as a past time when they were not flying. After lunch, the trio walked back to Bergen Hall. Tuesday was a short day; flight training in the morning and flight planning in the afternoon. It was an easy day for them.
…
Back in the Hansen wing, the dorm came alive. Each wing has 16 rooms. Each room boarded two students. When thirty two guys were kept in the same confines, nothing got done. Dorm was a place for rest, relaxation, brotherhood, and a place where the boys could just be boys. The afternoon between lunch and dinner was known as Halo o’clock when the wing’s IT network was put to good use. Thirty two combatants clog the virtual space as they shot, sliced, and blew each other up through the video game carnage that was Halo 3. As you walked through the halls of Jansen, all you saw was the glare that emanated from the TV screens in the rooms and the sound of loud kablams and kabooms as bombs and rockets blew bodies up into mangled pieces tossed up in the air. Nothing unified the dorm like a good round of Halo 3. As the game unfolded, Max and Andreas had ganged up on Rikard and his quiet roommate from China. This was where Max’s abilities limited him. Video games were not something he was good at. Though he played a lot when he was a boy, video games were something that Max quickly grew out of. When his parents died in a horrific plane crash, Max had to grow up even faster. He no longer enjoyed doing the simple things that boys his age enjoyed like going out with friends, watching movies, and even riding his bike. Accepting his parents’ death was difficult for Max to deal with and was constantly thinking why it had to happen to him. Their death could have been avoided had the airline pilot choose not to drink before climbing into the cockpit. The grisly sounds of the video games made Max realize he was losing at Halo 3. He put the game controller down because the sheer violence reminded him of the loss of the two most important people in his life. It was a good time for him to grab his backpack and study. He politely excused himself from the room and headed out for the library.
It was close to six o’clock. The sun was about to set on the clear September evening and the skies were filled with beautiful hues of red-orange, purple, and yellow, as the light of the sun slowly retreated in the distant horizon. The wind was calm and the gentle rustle of leaves could be heard on the field across the academy’s main building. As he approached the entrance, he saw a crowd of guys huddled around the TV screens mounted on the walls set to televise news from around the world. As he entered, all he could hear was a news reporter stating the situation of the war had been escalated to a state of emergency. The Americans had declared war over Germany. Living in Hungary, its government was loyal to that of Germany, as part of its commonwealth. The Germans were in desperate need for pilots. According to the chief flight commander of the András Aviation Academy, all qualified students would be assigned on a mission to aid in the war. All those who had completed their upper air work exercises would be assigned to a fly with a flight instructor to aid in humanitarian purposes. They would be flying into the warzone to drop supplies.
Max could not believe his ears as the announcement sent the students in the academy’s main lobby in a frenzy of confusion. Suddenly, everyone erupted in a barrage of questions only to be shut down by the chief flight commander as he stated only those who qualified would have their names appear on the TV screens. As Max desperately tried to process and digest the information he just received, it crossed his mind that Rikard and Andreas were still in the dorm, playing Halo 3, engrossed in their virtual world while real people were about to be sent out to experience the real thing, out in the real world just a few hundred kilometers outside the safety of the academy.
Max, filled with determination, was reminded by a flash of a recent picture of his parents and found the courage to walk up to the TV monitor to check for his name. He knew exactly where he was in his training and expected his name to be on that list. He waited a few seconds as the list got to the section of the alphabet where his last name should be. The monitor read: Paluzski, Max: qualified specialist, acrobatics major, solo flight ready.
In that brief moment of time, everything was in its place. For Max, this was the break he was looking for; a moment to prove that he could do what he set out for himself to do. As he stood in the lobby, he clenched his fists as if to muster the strength from his feet as the chief looked at him. Without the exchange of words, he gave Max the affirmation he needed.
For Max, getting the Warrior safely off the ground was just one of the things on his agenda that evening.