I had to go to Cleveland to bring back a ship that a student of mine had
left there in bad weather. I got on an airliner, with a parachute. The
chute was for use on the way back.
The airline porter wanted to put my chute in the baggage compartment. My
argument was: "What good would it do me there?" The porter looked
offended, but I kept my attitude and took my chute to my seat with me.
We took off from Newark after dark. The weather was bad, and we went
blind three minutes after we took off.
I tried to console myself with the thought that the pilots were
specially trained in blind flying, that they had instruments, had two
motors, had radio, that everything was just ducky. But I couldn't even
see the wing tips.
I tried to read my magazine. I found myself peering out of the windows
through the darkness to see if we had come out on top yet.
I tried to nap. I found myself hearing the motors getting slightly
louder, knowing we were nosing down; feeling myself getting slightly
heavier in my seat, knowing the pilot was correcting; hearing the motors
begin to labor slightly, knowing we were nosing up; feeling myself
getting ever so slightly lighter in my seat, knowing the pilot was
correcting again; telling myself repeatedly that he knew his stuff and
that there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway, but sitting there
going through every motion with him just the same.
Two hours later we were still blind, and my nose was pressing up against
the windowpane almost constantly. The other passengers probably thought
I had never been in a ship before.
Half an hour later we were still blind and only half an hour out of
Cleveland. We broke out of the stuff finally just outside of Cleveland.
We were flying low, and the lights were still going dim under us as we
skimmed along not very far above them. There wasn't much ceiling when we
landed, and it closed in shortly after that.
Most of the passengers roused themselves from sleep when we landed. I
was plenty wide awake. I knew that ship hadn't had much gas range. If we
had got stuck, we would have had to come down someway before very long.
If those passengers could have read my mind, or I think even the
pilot's, there probably would have been a battle in the cabin over my
chute.