In prior discussions/posts about ‘close encounters,’ your author shared past experiences during this lifetime (Horse #1, and Horse #2 & #3, plus rattlesnakes), including potential ‘cat lives’ that he may have used up. A new series: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, discusses additional, past, life-threatening incidents which come to mind, involving your author and an airplane, a train or two, and an a couple of automobiles.
The first experience involves an airplane.
“Harvey, there’s a deer in the middle of the runway!”
I was living in south central Wisconsin, married to Blond Girl, with three small children, at that time this incident occurred, working with a local real estate firm.
An owner of the firm, was a former WW-II pilot and instructor, named Harvey.
One day, while listening to Harvey talk about his past flying experiences, including a recent one in one of his planes, I asked him if he would consider giving me some affordable flying lessons, so maybe I could obtain my Private Pilot’s License.
Harvey said, “Sure, no problem. When do you want to start?”
So, that very afternoon, I had my first flying lesson in a little two-seater, single engine airplane, in what is termed a “tail-dragger.”
A couple of months and several lessons later, I was catching on pretty good on how to fly a small airplane. I was steadily losing my fear of piloting a small plane and looking forward to soloing, and then getting my license.
All was progressing along well.
Until one bright afternoon.
Harvey and I were out flying about 2-3 hours that afternoon, and I had made several landings and take offs, and a few “touch and go’s,” at several small, rural airports, including a couple that had grass landing strips. It was a lot of fun, and I was really enjoying myself.
As we finally were near to landing late in the afternoon at our home landing strip, I was seated in the front seat, and put the plane into a slow bank towards the far end of the runway, put on some flaps, and smoothly brought the plane down to a few feet above the surface of the asphalt runway.
Upon glancing farther down the runway, to a point about halfway down the strip, my mouth opened in disbelief and near panic flashed through me like a sudden electrical shock at what I saw there.
“Shit, Harvey,” I exclaimed as I somehow got the words out of my mouth, “there’s a deer standing right in the middle of the runway!”
Ole Harvey, sensing the excitement in my voice, was just calm as he could be, and said, “He’ll probably move out of the way, but, just in case, I’ll take it.” Meaning, from his position in the back seat, he took over the controls.
As I lifted my hands off the flight controls, Harvey quickly, and rather nonchalantly, adjusted the flaps, kicked the throttle full forward, and banked hard left, up and away from the runway, and above the adult whitetail doe, which was still standing on the runway like a statue, looking at us crazy humans.
After we had just cleared the deer, Harvey banked back right, and came back around to the end of the runway I was going to land on, and as we looked down at the deer, it slowly walked off the runway, and then disappeared into the brush.
Harvey then said, “OK, give it a try again; you got the controls. Let’s get this thing down and put away.”
This time, with no wildlife near the runway, I made a smooth landing, taxied over to where the tie-downs were, and killed the engine, and the flying was over for the afternoon.
Strangely, or perhaps, not so strangely, that was the last time I went flying in a small, private passenger plane.
I think that seeing that deer standing there in the middle of the runway, just as I was hurtling along on a collision course with it, was like a message to me, an omen, perhaps, telling me something.
In any event, I listened to it, and now, except for commercial jets, I am a confirmed ground guy.
Perhaps, like falling off a bike, or, from a horse (boo-bad memories and broken bones there, folks), I should have gotten back in the seat and gone right back up again. But, it was not to be.
Perhaps if a deer-on-the-runway incident had happened to me after I had had a thousand hours of flying time in my log book, I wouldn’t have thought or felt too much about it.
Back when this experience occurred, my children were young, and they, and my sweet wife, needed me.
Alive.
So, I bailed.
No regrets. Just another ‘close encounter’ survival memory.
It works for me.
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Stay tuned for the next ‘close encounter’ in the Planes, Trains and Automobiles Series, intitled: “The train that eats trikes.”
Coast Rat 