Magic Wings Read online

  “I wish I had your boss,” said Duke. “ What a cushy lifestyle!”

  “What are you talking about? My boss is a hideous, self centered asshole. I might not be a total slave like you, but owning my own business keeps a grip on my time!” said Stormy.

  “You guys think you’ve got a bitch,” I said. “ Listen to this. I got a nightmare house that needs painting as much as the golden gate bridge. I got an acre of front lawn that needs to be mowed twice a week. The hot tub needs cleaning. The chimney needs sweeping. I got twenty rooms to vacuum. The list goes on and on.”

  “Yeah. You sure got it rough,” both Duke and Stormy agreed sarcastically.

  “What do you do for a living anyway Aldo?” said Stormy.

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Yeah right!” said Duke. “You don’t live like that selling articles to the newspaper.”

  “He’s probably sucking off one of daddy’s oil wells, just like the President,” said Stormy.

  Suddenly, a car came around a bend and parked next to us. Two young kids hopped out of the car with their father. “Are you guys hang glider fliers?” the dad said. “I see people fly off this cliff. I live over there,” he pointed across the large lake, ” and I watch people jump off here. I’d really like to fly someday. Look kids. These here are real daredevils. Isn’t this great. They’re going to jump off this cliff. Hi my name’s Fred.” He waked behind us reaching out for our hands to shake. “And this is Millie and Logan.” He pointed at the kids. “When you guys gonna jump? Are these your hang gliders? I’m going to buy me one of these some day. It must be a real kick.” Then he and his family walked a few feet further away from the cliff and stood there motionless with their hands in their pockets, staring at our backs.

  “Great,” I said. “The spectators have arrived”. And I thought, ’ he’s brought some kids here to watch us get busted up on the rocks. That’s really going to be good for their personalities as they grow up.’

  “I can’t stand his energy,” whispered Duke. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He hopped up and smiled at the trio and they all smiled excitedly back, then Duke took his wing to a flat area and began setting it up.

  I looked at Stormy, who was obviously perturbed.

  “It’s not time yet,” he said. “The wind’s not right. It’s not strong enough. We’re going to get flushed if we fly now.”

  The family had moved over to where Duke had unfolded his glider and they were asking him questions and he was answering them politely.

  “Looks like being a pilot is a lot like being a politician,” I said.

  “We have to keep these folks happy,” said Stormy. ” Maybe someday we’ll need to land in his field. I’m not happy.” Stormy jumped up and carried his glider to the set up area.

  I felt alone, looking over the cliff, down on a million treetops. The hot light breeze was blowing up my nose, rich with the smell of pine. I could also smell the faintly fishy smell of the lake, and more than looking at it, smelling the lake reminded me that I should have gone swimming that day.

  Without the fundamental gut feeling that the conditions were strong enough then to hold a glider up, I too followed over to the setup area. We constructed our equipment and readied for launch.

  We were approached often by spectators who wanted to know what it was like to hang glide. Most were polite and unobtrusive, realizing that flying contraptions had to be assembled carefully. Almost always, I told them that gliding wasn’t as dangerous as it looked and the accident rate is actually lower than it is for football. But I added that it can be a white knuckle adrenalin rush. Flying a glider wasn’t at all what I had expected it to be when I first thought about doing it three years before. The air was much more dynamic than I had expected. I found that most flights were tethered to a fairly small area near some mountain top where the lift was strong. Because you were tied to one place except on rare occasions, scenery was not a priority reason to fly. Flying, for me, had become about watching the invisible, playing a game of “Who Can Stay Up Longer”. Today, because of the spectators, none of us were going to play that game very well.

  While we unpacked our gliders, the two kids ran around our equipment playing a game of their own. I had to ask them to stop, while their father stood over me asking dumb questions. We set up as quickly as possible to get away from those onlookers. I didn’t even double check my wing to see if everything was in its proper place.

  I was going to have a short ride, and I was not going to do it safely either. I would not be able to see the view from over the top of the mountain that I had heard made many a pilot “wax poetic”, as Tweedie said. And I also would not swim in the soothing looking water that spread out in the distance because I would be spending the rest of my day breaking down equipment and driving, all for a sled ride. I was disappointed.

  I walked up to the edge of the cliff with the glider strapped to my back. Tim was already in the air. The wind blew straight up the hill occasionally and with some force, but then it would die. There was a long lull between the thermals, a lot of down air punctuated by an up draft here and there. Finding those rare up drafts and staying in them would be difficult. I agreed with Stormy, we were going to get flushed.

  I ran over the cliff when flags that we had tied on some bushes along the cliff edge all pointed up and were held out stiffly by the breeze. Because Stormy and Duke had both advised me to look forward, and I was feeling irritable, I intentionally looked straight down at my feet while I launched. I took two long steps at full speed and on the third step I tip toed on the edge of the abyss, giving one final push to speed myself along, then I had no more ground to contact. I dove the glider toward the tree tops to pick up even more speed and there by gain more control of it. Then when the glider had thoroughly stabilized, I relaxed my grip and let it cruise at its own pace out toward the landing area. As I kicked my feet into the harness, I said to myself, “that was nothing”. I had done things a thousand times more hair raising during my hang glider days.

  As I expected, the flight was a sledder. There was a little lift here and there with which I extended the ride a little bit. I hunted intensely for those bubbles of warmer air, but they were too isolated from each other and too hard to find. Focusing on the game aspect of gliding that day, I barely noticed the scenery as it went by below me. I gave up all hope of a spectacular flight after a few minutes and followed Duke into the landing area. Stormy followed quickly thereafter.

  Hot Woodrat

  Hawks flew overhead when I arrived at the Woodrat landing pasture on a weekend in August. I watched them rise and dive with curiosity. The temperature was approaching ninety degrees and I had been instructed that it would be rough up in the sky on a hot summer day and not advisable to fly until late when shadows lengthened across the valley. The two hawks glided upward quickly then folded their wings tight to their bodies and dove toward the ground. They repeated their dance over and over. It looked like they were playing.

  Stormy and Duke showed up while I stood outside my truck waiting.

  The hawks folded and plummeted in somersaults next to each other, then their wings would burst open at the very last second before they would smash into the ground and they swooped skyward. I was intrigued.

  “Here”, said Duke, as he handed me an old gauge. “It’s time you had an altimeter. It’ll help you stay afloat up there. It’s just been sitting around my house collecting dust.”

  I’ve been trying to stay away from instruments. Birds don’t need them,” I said. “ I want to develop my senses. You know, if you always rely on equipment, you’ll never develop a natural sense of things. “

  “I used to think that too, then after eight years of flying free bar, I decided that I never was going to develop a bird brain. Look. Try it out. Maybe you’ll like it,” Duke replied. “Here”. He shoved it into my hand.

  I looked at it. “Well thanks, I guess. I’ll pay for it.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. Then he loa
ded his equipment onto Stormy’ truck.

  I looked at the two dial gauge. There was a variometer to tell how fast you were ascending or descending and an altimeter to show elevation. I put it with my harness and loaded glider, harness, helmet and wheels into Stormy’ truck.

  We drove away from the landing field. We drove by a herd of cattle almost immediately, unfenced, grazing quietly from some troughs in a barren acre beside the road. The ground was covered with brown manure there and a little dust devil whipped across the manure dust sweeping some through the open window into our stifling hot car.

  “Man, I hate cows. Why can’t they quit crappin so much,” said Stormy. “Just about everywhere we land is a cow pasture. I wish I had enough money to buy this field!”

  “You would,” teased Duke. “But your X-wife has it now.

  “Well at least I don’t have to put up with the bitch anymore,” said Stormy, a little riled. “As soon as she got into that Jesus stuff and wanted to haul me off to church, that was the last straw. It was bad enough that she started crankin on me for heading out to the hang gliding hill instead of spending the weekend BBQ’n and cleaning the house. Man. When we met she was so cooperative. She’d even drive me to the launch and then make me dinner when we got home. That was before we got married. As soon as I said ‘I do’ all that politeness disappeared. Damn glad to be a bachelor now. I have a house and it’s decorated the way I want it, with babe pictures on the wall. Trouble with real girls. They have brains. That’s the problem. Someday someone will invent a robot that moves like a real girl but doesn’t have any opinions. “

  “Now Stormy, you’ll have to admit your life is a little dull these days,” said Duke.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Stormy, “Mr. I’ve-been-with-the-same-girl-since-high-school. You would think you would have worked up quite an appetite for some variety by now. I can tell by the color of your wing, you’re thinking of the glider like it’s a woman. I mean, flesh pink. For Christ’s sake!”

  “Ha,” I said. “So that’s what your up to Duke. Screwing around on your wife!”

  “Yeah, so what!" said Duke. “What’s you’re glider all about Aldo Nova? I’ve seen the way you fondle all those tubes and wires before you launch. That’s pretty cheesy.”

  “And what about you Stormy?” I said. “You got ten gliders stacked up in your house . What do you think that’s all about?”

  “Hey”, said Stormy. “A man need variety!”

  “No wonder your wife split, “ said Duke. “ And no wonder she turned to Jesus. I mean. Look at you! Any woman who ever knew about your secret harem would run like a little sheep from the big bad wolf.

  “Hey man”, Duke leaned forward from the back seat. “I really want to go to Mexico this year. I hate the way the gliding craps out in winter around here. I hear there’s a great spot down there where you can get to 16,000 feet in the dead of winter.”

  “I hate to drive. Maybe I’ll go as far as Hat Creek. That works all winter,” said Stormy.

  “I thought you liked to drive”, I said. “We always load on your truck to go to the mountain top.”

  “That’s cause”, Stormy said, “ no self respecting car owner would leave their new rig under that tree in the LZ with all those cows standing around waiting to accost it. I mean, maybe if you guys didn’t have such dumpy vehicles, you'd have noticed all the nose prints all over your dingy paint. I noticed some hoof prints on your truck Aldo. You better watch out when you try to drive it away.”

  I was feeling more relaxed than usual as we wound up the steep logging road. It was four o'clock when we reached the gravel pit near the mountain top. A vast view opened up of the valley below. The view was slightly hazy and wavering in rising heat. Wind was blasting up from the valley, singing through some pines along the high ridge. There appeared no reason to wait to launch. I set up on the parking lot that had been constructed after the quarry was abandoned in spring.

  I attached the instrument package to the glider reluctantly and set the altimeter to 3500 feet, which was the launch elevation.

  I was developing confidence in my launches now, so when I stepped away from the ground and sprung up into the sky, I looked around calmly and assessed the conditions with confidence.

  So what is ‘intermediate syndrome’ I asked myself as I climbed toward a pocket in the ridge? My instructor had mentioned that phrase and I’d read about it in books too. They say that there comes a point when every pilot feels secure in the air and confident that nothing will hurt them in flight. Badger had made a point of rubbing that in during my lessons. “It’s when you feel confident that you make stupid mistakes,” he said. “There have been pilots with years of experience who land in trees, or crash in LZs, or launch without setting up their wings right , or not hooked in.”

  I glided along the highest ridge of Woodrat Mountain now and I was relaxed to the point of being lulled to sleep. So what would my mistake be? Would I decide that it would be OK, finally, to take a little nap up in space?

  I cruised along the ridge with a hundred feet between me and the treetops, admiring nature from a perspective most inhabitants of Earth had never dreamed of. The knife edge of the ridge and all the facets of the cut stone of the planet always intrigued me. One gully on the South, brushy side of the ridge met a timbered drainage from the north face of the ridge in a rocky crest that would have been a hassle to explore walking on the ground. It would have taken a strenuous trudge up and down boulders and across tangles of wind blown, knarley trees and twisted bushes. I had been in similar situations, walking upon similar ridges as a forest fire fighter, carrying heavy saws and gear to fight lightening fires. Now, meandering along this ridge was seemingly effortless.

  After a while I flew back to the launch area and noticed from above that Duke and Stormy were standing on the launch looking at the view.

  “Come on you guys”, I yelled . “Wahoo! It’s great up here.”

  They waved, then went back to looking around. Why hadn’t they come to join me yet? Maybe they were waiting for a sunset flight.

  I flew around for an hour like a king in a kingdom until I got tired and decided to land. I yawned and stretched and headed for the landing field. For the two miles I cruised as smooth as silk across the valley. Over the field, I looked at my new altimeter and I realize that I was not loosing any elevation. The ground had pulled away, the mountain had become hills and had then flattened out at the valley floor and I was half a mile above where I needed to be. I decided not to land right away and instead headed for the town of Ruch.

  There, cars were coming and going from local business, a herd of cows were heading for a feed trough, and church bells were ringing so far in the distance below me that it seemed strange that I could hear them crisp and clear. I cruised another mile with still no change in elevation.

  Another half hour went by. Finally I was getting too tired to hold my body in position or my arms on the control bar. I took one hand, which was tingling, off the controls and shook it. Then I grabbed the glider frame with that hand and took the other hand off. The air had been consistently smooth for a long time, so I took both hands off the control bar and let them dangle. I pretended I was playing with the little cars and cows with my hands, like a little kid. I would move the cars along the highway at will and the cows to the water trough. I let my body go limp too. And I cranked my head around to watch the glider flying peacefully across the blue sky with no one at the helm. I faced the distant ground again and rubbed my uncomfortable, dry eyes. I pictured a beer, wet and foaming. I was drooling a little bit and the droplet was blowing back onto my chin. I knew I had over exerted myself and had to land.

  Reasserting myself, I pulled in on the control bar and tried to head the glider downward and the glider sped up, chattering and rumbling along. But I could not loose any elevation. I pulled in the control bar more, until it was pushed back as far as my arms could reach. That made the glider dive through a fearsome turbulence. The wing stretched and m
oaned to the brink of snapping and I held that tense posture, muscling the glider down while waves of frothing, relentlessly uplifting air pounded the sail.

  What seemed like an endless time went by while I tediously overcame the awesome power of rising, hot summer air. I was becoming exhausted and fearful and was descending very little. It seemed I would have to give up. I relaxed my grip and leveled the glider and the bubbling, boiling air that had heated all day in the pastures below quickly carried me back to where I had first started the dive.

  I squirmed in my flight suit now, trying to keep my tense back muscles from getting cramped. Then I dangled my hands and shook them hard. “Damn”, I muttered.

  Cars at the church below were in a procession now, out of the parking lot. I remembered Stormy sarcastically commenting that, “ The air over the church might be a little too uplifting on Sundays.”

  I realized that I would have to get much smarter and braver to defeat the powerful air. So I headed across the valley for miles, in search of a sink hole. I didn’t care how small it was. There had to be someplace where the air was sinking, to replace the hot air that was rising off the ground. Otherwise there would be a vacuum down there. I knew there wasn’t because people and cows were still moving and breathing.

  I would have to center on a sinkhole and maintain a spiral dive there, no matter how violent it got, until I was within easy striking distance of the ground. Adrenalin was pumping hard in my arteries. I envisioned myself as a warrior, on a mission against the wind.

  There was a steep valley in black evening shadows over a low ridge from the main Applegate valley. The gully there had some bright green trees around it, probably meaning there was water in it, maybe cold enough to cause a downdraft. I thought I might find my battlefield there.