Love Story: In The Web of Life (14 page)

As we turned on the road leading to CrystalAire
Airport, Tina said, "It's overcast, you can't even see the tops of
the mountains. It doesn't look like a soaring day."

I said, "It looks really good for a wave to
develop. See how the clouds are moving fast from the direction of
the mountains. If the wind shifts a little bit it will be just
right for a wave. We had better be ready to fly when the condition
appears."

We drove to the operations building, a slightly
weather-worn mobile home with a swamp cooler on top, not running
today because it was not hot. The door was open and inside I met
Dave, the tow pilot. I arranged to rent the high performance
two-place sailplane. Dave said he would send the office girl,
Celia, to tow it to the takeoff line with the ATV.

Dave said, "The other day there was a strange
nerdy guy out here who asked which sailplane trailer belonged to
you. He looked it over for a while, but didn't get into it or
anything, as far as I could tell."

"Thanks, I'll check it out after we are all
ready to go in the two-place. Don't want to miss the wave
opportunity. Was he a white, male Caucasian, five-five, stocky
build, grey crew cut, gold rimmed glasses?"

Dave looked puzzled and said, "Yea, a friend of
yours?"

"No, but please call me at home if you ever see
him again."

As we walked over to our two-place, Tina
observed, "Wow, the wings are really big and shiny, and they have
these little ears going up at the ends."

"The wingspread is eighteen meters, nearly
sixty feet. This one is a lot harder to put together than mine,
which is only fifteen meters. These things at the end make it fly
farther."

"Do I get to sit in front or back?"

"Front. I can fly from the back seat and see
over your shoulders."

I completed my preflight check, inspecting the
wings, tail, controls, and cockpit. Celia came over with the ATV
and I hooked the rope to the big glider. Tina and walked holding
the wingtips off the ground while Celia towed us to the staging
area.

"Let's see how you fit in the front
seat,"

Tina got in and I showed her how to adjust the
seat belt and shoulder harness.

Tina joked, "Maybe I should have worn a sports
bra. These shoulder straps don't do much for a girl's figure. They
are more flattering if I spread them outside my bust line like
this."

I replied, "They are not a fashion statement.
You might not like the way they are squeezed by the harness when we
hit a downdraft. Nobody is going to be looking at your figure. I'll
be behind you, you know."

Tina, bent over and looked at the instrument
panel. “Where are all the gauges? I have seen the cockpits of other
airplanes and they have lots of gauges."

"In a glider all you need is a compass to tell
you which direction you are going, an airspeed indicator for how
fast you are going there, an altimeter, and a rate-of-climb gauge
to tell you how fast you are going up or down. Gliders are all
about flying, not gauges."

I asked her if she was warm enough and she said
yes. We sat down next to the glider, leaned our backs against the
hull, opened our thermos of coffee, and cupped our hands around the
cups as we drank.

"What is there about soaring that attracts you
to it so much?" asked Tina as she patted the sailplane. "It's kind
of a guy thing, isn't it?"

"I had never thought of it as such, but I guess
you are right. There are few female pilots. I recently read David
Brooks' book,
The Social Animal,
and he made the case that much of our behavior is derived
from subconscious thinking. We have mental processes going on that
we do not know about, exhibiting behavior that is often instinctual
in nature, and displaying patterns of behavior we learn from
parents, siblings or other role models. Maybe soaring is a
primitive need for conquest, overcoming or harnessing nature, or
maybe it is about freedom, as in free-as-a bird. All I know is that
I need, no, must do it.

"Some guys own sailplanes, keep them in
trailers tied down out here, but hardly ever fly them, like the
people who have yachts that never leave the marina. To them, it
might be an ownership-identity kind of thing.

"For me, I have to fly, and it is good to get
away from the office and LA. It allows me to get away from whatever
case I am working on and to think of something else. One time, I
took off at 10:00, later felt hungry, looked at my watch and found
it was 2:00. I had been too busy concentrating to eat lunch. There
are thrilling aesthetic experiences to be had flying among the
clouds. Today could be one of those days."

I looked a Tina and said, "Somehow, I wanted to
share that with you today."

Tina looked back at me affectionately and said,
"I'm glad."

Dave walked over and said, "Look, the gap is
starting to form in the eastern part of the ridge. Better get ready
to go in a few minutes." Dave walked to the Pawnee tow
plane.

We got up and brushed the dust off our pants. I
said to Tina, "You walk the wing tip so it doesn't drag on the
ground and I'll push us into takeoff position."

We rolled the big plane to the center of the
runway. I helped Tina strap herself in the front seat and got into
the back seat, strapped my self in, and said to Tina, "I am going
to go through my check sheet and then we will be ready to go. We
will wait until the wave gets more established"

Before the wave forms, clouds are streaming
over the mountains and the whole sky is overcast. Then, as the wind
changes to the right direction, a gap a mile wide starts to form on
our side of the mountains. It is as though someone unzips the
clouds along the mountains and reveals the clear blue
sky.

Celia came out to assist in our takeoff. She
attached the Pawnee's tow cable to the glider and then went to the
wingtip. I was ready to go so I gave her a thumbs-up. She picked up
the wingtip to signal Dave in the tow plane that I was ready to go.
Dave started the Pawnee's engine, and taxied to take up the tow
cable slack.

I said to Tina, "Ready to go?"

She replied, "Yes, this is scary!"

I signaled Dave by wiggling my rudder. We
started down the runway, and in a few seconds we were flying,
staying low to the ground, to let the tow plane get flying and up
to full speed.

Tina cried, "Wee, this is fun! I'm
flying."

The tow plane began to climb. I pulled back on
the stick to follow him. I said to Tina, "In a few minutes it will
get turbulent and the tow plane will suddenly go up a hundred feet
or down a hundred feet, and I will follow. It is like roller
coaster ride, but won't last long."

There was quiet for a few minutes and then Tina
giggled and said, "This is really fun! Look, there is the Devil's
Punchbowl. It really looks different from up here."

In a few minutes we hit the turbulence near the
wave. The tow plane suddenly shot up to forty-five degrees above
us, and a second later we were pushed down in our seats as the
sailplane was thrust upward. Then, the tow plane almost disappeared
below us as it entered falling air and we soon followed, being
thrust upward against our shoulder harness by the acceleration,
heads nearly bumping on the canopy. We chased the tow plane down
and then suddenly he was above us again. Immediately we were again
pushed down in out seats.

After a few minutes of this roller coaster
ride, as we were again being thrust down in our seats, Tina asked
in grunt, "Are we almost there, yet?"

"Almost there," I replied. "In a minute you
will hear a loud 'twang' when I release the tow rope. That is
normal."

In a few seconds the turbulence vanished into
an astounding silence. The tow plane stopped moving up and down and
seemed to hover in front of us. "Twang!" I released the towrope and
the tow plane turned to leave us. I turned the sailplane to fly
parallel to the mountains. The air was as smooth as glass and the
sailplane flew in astonishing silence.

"Tina, see that gauge on the right, pointing up
at forty-five degrees? It is telling us that we are climbing four
hundred feet a minute, while we are flying at sixty miles-per-hour.
If we moved right, toward the mountains, the lift would decrease.
Close to the mountain, we would lose altitude fast. We are in a
thin band of smooth, climbing air. Off to the left is turbulent air
like we came through on the way here. I'll fly that way a little
bit and you will be able to feel the wingtip vibrate."

I steered a little bit left and then we could
feel the shudder of the wingtip in the turbulent air. We had
climbed through the gap and were now higher than the mountains,
flying in smooth, clear blue air. We could see the flat sea of
overcast to the South covering LA, stretching over hundreds of
miles. To the North we could see the clouds forming over the Sierra
range. Ahead, at the edge of the wave, a roll cloud was forming, a
long, stationary cloud rolling in the lee of the wave. Wispy
fingers of cloud, like waterfalls, streamed upward for thousands of
feet, creating rainbows and sparkling in the sun.

"This is magical!" said Tina in a low voice,
"Silently flying along something that looks like Niagara Falls,
turned upside down. I can see forever over LA. Almost a spiritually
transcendent experience."

"I agree," I replied, as I reached forward and
put my hand on Tina's shoulder. Tina lifted her hand and placed it
on mine. We flew like this for several minutes and then I started
to feel a little turbulence.

I made a few slight turns and said, " I think
we have to head back, we are at the end of the wave. Were about as
high as we should be without oxygen and we don't want to get up to
where the airliners fly. We don't have to worry about being here,
airline pilots will avoid the wave areas. They like to keep their
passengers from bouncing off the cabin ceiling."

I reversed course. As I got into the glassy
smooth air, I returned my hand to Tina's shoulder. Her hand
returned to mine, and we silently enjoyed the spectacular
experience, riding both the wave of air and the wave of
joy.

I flew to where we could drop out of the bottom
of the wave and took a less turbulent route back to the
field.

We rolled to a stop in the sailplane tie-down
area, I opened the canopy and we both sat silently for a
minute.

"That was amazing!" said Tina.

We both unbuckled our harness and climbed out
onto the tarmac. Without a word Tina gave me a big hug, held me and
said, "Thank you, I'll never forget that experience. But, now I
have to visit the ladies' room."

I replied, "After I tie this bird down I am
going to walk down to check out my sailplane trailer. I'll meet you
there."

I suddenly felt uneasy as my attention turned
to my sailplane. I closed my eyes, and saw, in a visualization, the
vague outline of something scratched in the ground under my
trailer. I hurried to the trailer, and there it was. A symbol was
scratched in the hard earth under the back of the trailer; the same
symbol drawn in the dust of Candice's windshield in the parking
garage. I took out my cell phone and took several pictures. Then I
took out my keys and opened the access door into the trailer.
Nothing seemed to be disturbed. I checked the access door on the
other end where everything also seemed normal. 'There might be
prints,' I thought. When I looked closely, I could see the normal
desert dust grime on the trailer around the doors had been wiped
clean. 'I'll let Dore's security service people know about this
tomorrow.' I said to myself.

Then, Tina walked up and cheerily said, "Picnic
time!"

The cold wind was coming up, driven by the
wave-weather.

"We need a sheltered place for our picnic," I
said. "We could go over to the patio behind the mobile
home."

Tina dropped her eyes and said, "Not today,
let's go somewhere out in nature."

"OK," I said, "That wasn't supposed to be a
trick. I know just the place."

We went back to the airport office and I paid
my bill and wrote a note requesting people inform me if Mr.
White-male-Caucasian-five-five-stocky
build-grey-crew-cut-gold-rimmed-glasses showed up again.

"What was that about?"

"I'll tell you at lunch," I
replied."

We drove up a dirt road alongside the airfield
to the end and then turned uphill on another steep rough dirt and
desert rock road. Near the top of the hill, we came to the ruins.
There, only the stacked river-stone walls of a barn remained, the
roof of which was long gone, with a cement floor and an open side
to the North where nearly all the rock wall had fallen. We went
inside to where the walls sheltered us from the wind and it was
warm in the sun. A clean, but weatherworn picnic table sat near the
wall by a fire pit, which had apparently been made from some of the
rock from the fallen walls.

I explained that a glider pilot I knew had
cleaned the place up and used it as a place to park his RV when he
came to fly.

"It is a beautiful view," said Tina.