Sentimental Journey

We have a buyer for N620CP. It took only a few days after listing in Trade-a-Plane to get a serious offer (with deposit) for our beloved Archer, and if all goes well, she may be winging her way to California by the end of the week. The plane will be in for the buyer's inspection most of this week, so I took her up for what may be my last flight last night.

I think she was a little upset at not having been flown for so long. There was enough battery to light the lights and turn on the radios, but when I tried to crank the engine, the juice wasn't there. This led to a mild comedy as the (new and inexperienced) line guy spent a half-hour looking for the power pack and the adapter for the external plug on the Archer (some Pipers have nifty external power plugs so you can plug it in to charge the battery or use ground power without having to get at the battery. I wish all small planes had this feature). Then the tug stalled right in front of the plane, and we had to push it out of the way before starting the engine.

But once we had juice, she started right up. Even though my last flight had been <embarassed cough> July, everything was exactly the way I'd left it. After letting the engine warm up a bit during the runup, we taxied onto the runway and took off. The plane leapt into the sky as though glad to be once again free of the drag of the pavement.

Airplanes, like people, have personalities. On the ground, even the most graceful of fliers becomes an awkward creature, slow and fragile, tiptoeing carefully around obstacles so as to avoid damaging delicate wingtips, propellers, and control surfaces.

But once in the air, an aircraft's true character comes to the surface. After nine years, N620CP is like an old friend, or even a dearly beloved wife. We understand each other perfectly, and are completely comfortable relying on each other as partners in our journey through the air. I steer the plane with a thought: my hands know exactly how much to move to set up a standard rate turn. I am surprised to find myself flying with an unexpected degree of precision, despite my recent inexperience, and the fact that I'm not paying any conscious attention to my heading or altitude.

After fifteen minutes of idle playing in the air, it is time to head home. As the glow of the western sky fades, we do three perfect landings, perhaps the last we'll ever do together.

When I park, I'm amused to see the stalled tug sitting right where we'd left it 45 minutes before. It never did get started again.

The new owner is a former programmer in California who made a million dollars as one of the first employees of Yahoo. He's now working for peanuts in the right seat of a business jet, flying for a living because he loves it, not because he has to. I'm sure he will take good care of this member of our family, and I'm glad she's going to a home where her many fine qualities will be appreciated.