Who Truly Loves the Sky: life lessons from the cockpit

By Charles B. Swain, III, with John M. Steinbach

In his 20+ years in the Albany, New York, area, Swain logged over 4,000 hours in single-engine aircraft and taught more than 100 people the joys of flying. In this memoir of his aviation career he relives many of his flying adventures. His own personal experiences include his introduction to flight at age 12, chasing an eagle into northwestern Ontario, his flight to the Bahamas on his honeymoon, landing at Laguardia just ahead of a Boeing 747, and his almost fatal crash on top of a Massachusetts mountain. His flight instructor tales include the student who quit lessons after his solo flight under threat of divorce, the pilot who did a back flip off the plane's wing after completing his solo, and the student who returned later to thank Swain for his life-saving lesson on fuel systems.

Who Truly Loves the Sky: life lessons from the cockpit is an inspirational memoir and a testament to one man's love of flying and his passion for sharing that love with others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles B. Swain, III, with John M. Steinbach
• Release date: Sep 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370299522

Book preview

Who Truly Loves the Sky:

life lessons from the cockpit

by Charles B. Swain, III

with John M. Steinbach

Copyright 2016 Who Truly Loves the Sky

a Virginia Partnership

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the authors and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support

Dedicated to our wives,

Jan Swain and Leto Steinbach,

for their endless patience

and support

And of the living … none, not one,

Who truly loves the sky

Would trade a hundred earth-bound hours

For one that he could fly.

from First Things First

by Gill Robb Wilson

Founder of the U.S. Civil Air Patrol

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Beginning

Trust Your Equipment

Know the Risks

Don't Act Stupid

Be Prepared

Pay Attention

Enjoy the Trip

Experience Counts

Working with People

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda...

Keep Learning

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Rain coming off the rotor of a helicopter stings! Those soft, liquid, little drops of water felt like wasps injecting venom into my face. But I was eternally grateful to have that Coast Guard helicopter overhead: it meant the end of one very long, cold, rainy night. If I had had my eyes open, I might have seen the broad diagonal orange stripe on the side of the chopper as the winch lifted the basket and its passenger, me. I might have seen it, if I hadn't had my eyes closed as protection against those pesky wasps.

We humans, I think, have a tendency to remember the unusual incidents, the special events, the dramatic experiences. All my life I've felt that way, first as a general aviation pilot, then as a flight instructor. When it came to flying, about 98% of the time everything went smoothly. But that 2% made life interesting. The same thing held true with my student-pilots: most of them blended in, but a few students stuck out in my memory.

My good friend, John Steinbach, and I have gotten together for coffee almost every week for the past several years. Recently, while I was reminiscing about some of my flying experiences, unbeknownst to me, John was recording me on his phone. He later pointed out that we could pull some of my stories together into a collection that other people might enjoy reading. This book is the fruit of that conversation.

During my career as a pilot and instructor, I didn't keep a journal or detailed notes of all my experiences or those of my students. I do still have my flight logs, but the stories you'll read rely mostly on memory.

We decided to group these stories under different themes – Knowing the Risks, Paying Attention, and so on – themes that people might relate to in their daily lives. I don't get preachy in my stories: I think some lessons are there for anyone to see.

I hope you enjoy reading this book. I know I've loved remembering all those hours in the air.

Charles B. Swain, III

July 2016

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The Beginning

We could hardly wait to get up in the morning!

Wilbur Wright

I'll always remember that day. I was twelve years old.

The breeze pushed the lazy cumulus clouds along, their shadows dragging across Wheatley's field, just outside Clayton, Delaware. It was the summer of 1953, a Sunday afternoon I would never forget: I was about to leave the confines of Earth, defy gravity for a while, and fly like a bird. I was so excited that I could hardly sleep the night before.

I belonged to the Clayton Boys' Club (I always wondered why they didn't change the name, because we had girls in the club, too). We met at the elementary school and did many fine activities, both fun and educational. My favorite activities were those where we learned the principles of aviation, similar to what students learned in the Civil Air Patrol. We earned points for taking part in these activities, and some of us had earned enough to merit a flight.

Our instructor, Captain Bill Short, of the Delaware State Police, owned a Cessna 120, a tail-dragger. He had announced at the previous meeting that he would take some of us up in his plane, one at a time. My turn came. As I sat in the right-hand seat, my heart jumped up into my throat, not out of fear but excitement. When we took off, the transition seemed so smooth that I could hardly believe we had left the earth until I looked out the window.

Figure 1 - Cessna 120

I can still remember flying over the elementary school and seeing people playing ball on the baseball diamond down there. We flew around the town and right over my own house where I lived with my parents and my younger brother, John. We passed over the ice plant where my father worked, right beside the Pennsylvania