Paul The Pilot

This is an eBook short story about a teenaged pilot’s harrowing experience flying a small airplane as a swordfish spotter over shark-infested waters off the La Jolla, San Diego, CA coast in the 1970’s.

Here is the Nineteenth installment, with a few paragraphs to follow about every few days…

CHAPTER 9 – YOU CAN’T LAND HERE!

The sun shone on the white cliffs in the distance. I headed right for them. There was no chance, I figured, that I could make it home, so if I could get to land, where would I rather be? And, I didn’t need the attention from the media or the Fed’s (FAA). I could choose Fiesta Island, but it was farther away and it was rare to see a plane land there. I chose La Jolla Shores, and if I were lucky enough, I could reach the glider strip on top of the cliffs. It wasn’t open for landings, so that would mean it would be pretty much deserted – just a few lovers and hikers. I knew this land well – There was a lot happening on those cliffs, much of it out of plain sight.

… read the whole story to date here

This is an eBook short story about a teenaged pilot’s harrowing experience flying a small airplane as a swordfish spotter over shark-infested waters off the La Jolla, San Diego, CA coast in the 1970’s.

Here is the Eighteenth installment, with a few paragraphs to follow about every few days…

I had more urgent things to think about. First – fly the most direct course to my airport; Second – prepare for ditching, should that occur. I needed altitude for several reasons. The higher I was, the sooner I could spot familiar landmarks and close in on my target. Also, radio navigation aids were easier to receive at altitude. And, were I to have to ditch, I would be able to spot a boat and have more of a chance reaching it, praying they saw my splashdown. Plus, altitude buys a pilot time. Time to prepare his machine, his approach, his mind, his demise. And, one last thing… it allows the last few drops of fuel from the tanks to be available. Since the tanks are in the wings, and these wings are thicker in the front, the last bit of fuel will collect in the front. This is where the fuel pickup pipes are. Normal landings and better glide rates are accomplished with the nose of the plane being slightly up. But, this moves the fuel back in the tanks, away from the pickups. This is not a good thing where the fuel situation is critical. Pilots are taught to not keep the nose up when out of fuel, but to ease it forward, ever so slightly, to keep the engine running. Problem is, if you are too close to the ground, easing it forward results in a hasty landing – not necessarily the desired effect. Anyway, back to the problem at hand…

Obviously, dead reckoning easterly is a good start. A climb to five-thousand feet would give me the best vantage for the extra fuel burned to get up there. So, up we go. The air feels thinner, and it is colder up here. And, this stuation was so grim, all I could think of was the land. The boats were barely dots on the sea. I could begin to pick out some islands and started seeing some indication from the junk radios that they might be picking up some reliable signals soon. Nevertheless, ditching was still a possibility and I needed to get ready. I donned my inflatable Mae West lifejacket and helmet, and readied my inflatable one-man life-raft nearby. I set my aircraft communications radio to the emergency frequency and kept looking for land. The engine started running rough. I adjusted the fuel mixture but it didn’t get any better. Was it my mind? I could still see fuel in the sight gauges, but it took considerable more work to slosh it around. God, oh God, what have I done? This is not good at all.

… read the whole story to date here

This is an eBook short story about a teenaged pilot’s harrowing experience flying a small airplane as a swordfish spotter over shark-infested waters off the La Jolla, San Diego, CA coast in the 1970’s.

Here is the Seventeenth installment, with a few paragraphs to follow about every few days…

Let’s see. Wag the tail and watch the glass fuel gauge tubes and let the plane settle. Then watch the fuel stop sloshing. Holy shit. I whipped it around and headed due east.

“Guys, I need to go NOW. Call me in the morning. And, keep your radio on this frequency for a while, so I can contact you if I need you. She isn’t running quite right.”

“OK Paul, we’ll listen up. Call ya in the morning.”

Oh, shit, do I have a problem… I think this time, I really do.

CHAPTER 8 – ENGINES ALWAYS SEEM TO RUN A LITTLE ROUGHER OVER THE OCEAN

The boats always wanted the plane to sink beyond the 9 mile bank, if I had to ditch. “And make sure it sinks!” they would chuckle. That way, nobody could find it, to place any blame as to how it fell from the sky. Here off of San Diego, California, about nine miles out, the shallow shelf drops straight down to the depths of the Pacific. The plane would sink, miles down, unreachable, forever hidden beneath a wave. And, around ten or twenty miles out, there are enough boats to pluck you from the sea. Just fly in front of a boat and land across it’s bow. The plane is a drop in the ocean, so it’s important to be seen ditching, and with a little luck, the pilot would be home for lunch the next day.

… read the whole story to date here