There is just nothing more that I can buy for my biplane. The factory people just stand there and scratch their heads when I ask if there isn't just one more thing that they could do for me.
The laundry is done.
Right on schedule, the clouds break apart and a big patch of blue sky appears right over the Lansing airport. People hereabouts call this a "sucker hole". That's because once you fly up through the hole, the clouds close back in and you can't get back down. We've seen this happen the last few days, so we're not going to fall for it. Right on the airport is an FAA Flight Service station, with tons of computers and radar, and satellite links, so we drop by in person and get to see all the pretty satellite pictures right up to the minute. Sure enough, there's this big clear hole over Lansing airport, and thunderstorms to the North, South, East and West.
Nowhere to go for the eighth day in a row. But my plane is looking so good I can't stand it anymore, so I just have to fly soon or I'm going to forget how! The wind is calm, the temperature is in the 70's, the sun is shining.... I'm outta there. Poor Art just had his prop tips varnished and it was still tacky, so he had to stay on the ground. That meant that I would have an audience to critique my touch and go's, and if that wasn't enough to make me nervous Carl Dye, the world's greatest Waco pilot was hanging around to watch, as was Don Kettles, the Sales Manager of the Waco factory, and the entire crew of mechanics and detailers... all of whom suddenly had nothing better to do than to watch me make a fool of myself in public.
I've been in only a few difficult situations in an airplane, and this was one of the toughest. There was no graceful way to back out now unless I developed a severe case of "Montezuma's Revenge", and they would have seen right through that ploy. I was committed. So I milk the walkaround inspection as much as possible, hoping that maybe the sucker-hole will miraculously evaporate and turn into a raging thunderstorm, but no such luck. I'm in the plane, taxiing out, running up, and lifting off, and man am I nervous. I just know that I'm going to do something embarrassing on the landing, and sure enough... I do. Not real bad, but I wasn't happy with it (remember of course that I am a perfectionist, so when I'm just "not happy" with a landing, that means that it is about 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10). So I lift off again for another try and come in on a high approach, slip sideways for rapid deceleration and descent, and squeeze on a really superfine landing. Something like a 10.7 on a ten-point scale!
Now I'm really loose, so I go around again and cut the corners for a short approach, coming in really low over the numbers this time, and put it down slicker'n weasel snot..... when all of a sudden, here I am floating back up in the air about 5 feet off the ground, and I shouldn't be here at all! Wow! Never a dull moment when you're landing a taildragger. Landings aren't over till it's in the hangar and the door is shut. Well to make a long story short, here I am hanging up in the air about five feet off the runway, knowing that in about one second or less, I'm going to drop like a greased safe, and if I'm lucky, I'll only lose a couple of screws out of the airframe, and if I'm not lucky, I'll bend something expensive (of course bending anything will be expensive). The most expensive result of this situation will be the damage to my ego, and reputation, considering I have all those people watching my next move.
The only way out of this predicament is to squeeze on a little power, just a very little, and let it settle down ever so softly, three-point. This I do, and keep the power on for the rollout, apply full throttle again, and lift off in three-point stance at just above stall speed. This is a very beautiful takeoff and a technique which Carl Dye showed me a few days ago.
I did a few more touch and go's, and they were all without further incident, so I taxied back to the ramp to the waiting crowd. I took my time to let the engine idle down and tried to be casual as I filled out the log book, but I knew that they would be giving me some ribbing about that one landing, so when I climbed out onto the wing, I mentioned that I kinda bounced one back there. Well they really picked up on that, saying that they thought it must have been about 30 feet in the air, and they started to look for damage. Of course this was just good natured ribbing, and there was no damage whatsoever, but they just had to give me some jivin', I guess because I got to fly and they all stayed on the ground.
Later, I found out that they never saw anything but perfect landings. From their perspective, and distance, everything looked just right. This is something I have come to know after 3 years with this plane. You can really screw up a landing, and most people on the ground will comment just what a wonderful landing it was. The reason for this is that the plane is just so beautiful that it overpowers the senses, and it is just unimaginable that something so lovely could ever make anything but a perfect landing. However, when you're behind the stick, you know better.
A local flyer, and fellow Waco pilot, Mike Potts, says that there is no question that at 3pm tomorrow the Low pressure zone will pass through Lansing, followed by a High pressure zone, and the sky will clear to the North and that we will fly out of here with no problem to Mackinaw Island. He said this with such utter assurance that I have no doubt that it is true. After all, he is a biplane pilot, and he would know these things.
I will sleep well tonight, for today I flew in the sky like a bird.