Have any of you ever been slightly spooked while flying alone? (And
are you prepared to admit to it?)

Right after I got my Private, I was called for a job interview at a
newspaper in Beloit, WI.

Hot **** new pilot me, I wasn't about to *drive* to my interview, no
sir. Even though I lived in Racine, WI, just an hour or two away, I
was going to exercise my rights as an airman, and save myself that
"long" drive. It was the dead of winter, and cold.

Well, the interview went well, and long, and I didn't get back to the
rental Cherokee 140 until after dark. Luckily I had a small
flashlight in my flight bag, but it was a moonless night, so I had
trouble just *finding* the plane on the dark ramp.

Once inside the plane, it was absolutely inky black, and after
starting the plane I waited an interminably long period for my eyes to
adjust and fully open up in the dark. This night vision, of course,
was instantly blown away the moment I turned on the landing light, but
it didn't matter -- soon I was trundling down the snow-drift-lined
runway, waiting for the magic of Bernoulli to begin...

As I lifted off, and the Cherokee's stock landing lights meager
reflection on the ground receded, I was suddenly and completely
engulfed in a dark, velvety blackness, darker than anything I'd ever
seen. It was darker than the darkest ink, like being in a cave far
underground. I could see nothing, I could feel nothing, I had no
sensation of motion or anything except the sound of the motor.

The dim lights of the instruments seemed to float in this ultimate
blackness, and I felt completely disembodied. I was floating either
in or outside my body -- there was no way to tell -- and I may as well
have been a brain floating in a bubbling vat of chemicals, this new
world seemed so foreign. It took every ounce of effort to come back
to my senses, and to get on the gauges.

Within 15 seconds I had climbed high enough to see enough lights to
create a "horizon", and everything snapped back to normal -- but those
were 15 very long (and weird) seconds, indeed.

Of course, then I had to land on my 2300' long by 30' wide home field
runway, in the dark -- but that's a different story.

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"