"What's that?" My flight instructor looks at me almost accusingly.
"That's my half."
He looks at me like an adult looks at a child who said something cute. But it's not patronizing; he's just a nice guy.
"I'll cover it," he says.
"I insist."
"I know you do."
"No, I really insist."
He looks away and smiles. I know he won't let me pay my half of the lunch at KPAN, Payson Airport, a mountainous and scenic yet middle-of-nowhere strip we've flown to on our cross country flight through Arizona.
I decide to make my move at the front counter where we pay. But instead of taking out cash, allowing me to slip the $10 to the hostess before he pays, he comes out with a credit card.
Fine. Ten more dollars for me. I still feel indebted, though, like you do when somebody does something nice for you. And here I'd been trying to get that very same reaction from him, brownie points, if you will. Not that I'm a suck-up, it's just I know my flying hasn't been quite up to par lately, despite my best efforts in studying, and a little extra goodwill/patience from Mike wouldn't hurt.
Set power. Power set. Airspeed alive. Engine instruments in the green. Vr.
I concentrate on the climb out, trying to remember if I do a checklist, what to do on that checklist, what frequency to contact, if I have the right frequencies in, which I'll need to dial up next, if I contact Albuquerque Center or Prescott Radio, the specific phraseology I'm supposed to use, unique for different frequencies since it would be too easy otherwise...
"What are you forgetting?" Mike breaks my train of thought.
"Uh..."
"Okay, you should've done about three things by now."
It occurs to me that this would be so much easier if I wasn't going off three hours of sleep.
"Um..." I pause, unsure. The altimeter catches my eye; we're going on about 2,400 ft above the airport's elevation. Hmm, seems like a good time to do the 2,500 ft checklist.
"We'll leave the electric fuel pump on since we're still climbing. Lights - landing light off. Company call - we're too far out. 2,500 ft checklist complete."
This gives me just enough time to remember you contact the flight service station before Albuquerque Center. I hit Com 1 and call them up.
"Prescott Radio, Warrior 4185 Quebec transmitting on 122.3."
I open our flight plan and follow with a call to Albuquerque Center. The initial call-ups out of the way, I scan my sectional chart and look outside. Even at 10,500 the snow-capped mountains aren't far below.
Flying over them is disappointingly easy. It's almost cheating, not giving the virtually impassable terrain below its due. 100 years ago people would have looked at the ominous range with a sense of mysticism, a sense of awe, maybe not even knowing what lay beyond. And here I am with a bird's eye view of it all. Payson is behind me, Roosevelt Lake is up ahead, and Phoenix lies somewhere to the southwest beyond the horizon. Even what I can't see GPS provides.
It's really not fair. This land once commanded respect, and now we laugh at it, aloof, completely removed from the hazards and danger it once posed.
It wasn't long ago that the possible was impossible. And it was a simpler time. No radio calls, no complex aircraft systems, no physics, no math, no chemistry, no need to be educated to succeed.
Here's where I'll make my obligatory "education is good and the world is better off for having technology" statement. Good, we've got that out of the way.
100 years ago, life was simple. "Easy" might not be the best word - I'm sure the hardy people of yesteryear did their share of work and then some on the fields of a farm or in the factories representative of the Industrial Revolution or wherever - but it was easy, easy in knowing what you had to do to put bread on the table. Work the farm, sell the food, you live to work another day.
Such is not the case anymore. Forms have to be filled out for taxes, car insurance bills need to be paid, waivers need to be signed, the list goes on and on. And it never stops.
"Where are we?"
Mike breaks my train of thought again. I look ahead towards Roosevelt Dam, then to the heading indicator, and realize we're about 15 degrees off course. I quickly correct this and set the plane back towards our next checkpoint.
Looking outside, I see the scenic Southwest, the red-cliffed and desert-filled land glamorized in so many old Westerns. Again, a simpler time. No midterms, no bankrupting tuition, no worries over losing the scholarship just barely allowing you to scrape through to your degree. Instead there was Clint Eastwood kicking ass and taking names, going on adventures after Union Army gold. There was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, using just a little too much dynamite. There were heroes like Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Yul Brynner, heroes who took stands against crime and anarchy in the name of peace of justice. There was an epic atmosphere, and Morricone graced the most dramatic moments with his musical genius.
This is how the land below used to be. And then I mentally take a step back. Is it all Hollywood glamorization? Probably to some degree.
And yet, the world used to different. If you go far enough back, the globe - though not a "globe" at the time - ended at some point where you'd just fall off. Giant sea monsters roamed the oceans, attacking any sailors gutsy enough to adventure far enough out. Hell, objects of different masses even fell at different speeds. We didn't know as much. And we probably didn't know what lay beyond the mountains below.
They held us in awe. They made us wonder. We dreamed of what could exist, of what went unseen. It was mystical. It was fantastical. It was stunning. It was elusive. It was beautiful.
It was, in a word, unknown.
