SHOT AT AND MISSED!
MY JOB FOR THE DAY
Go to Frederick, Oklahoma…Gather info. and make a bid on a big a stone job Make the sale….get the contract signed by the contractor!….Drive back home
I’m thinking – - – why not fly? More fun than driving.
The Cessna Aerobat is sitting at the airport just waiting for me.
Piece of cake!
Excited, I hurried out to the airport, checked out the airplane and did my pre-flight inspection. I Taxied out to the end of the runway. Turning into the wind I ran the engine up to full power and checked all the instruments.
All set I advanced the throttle and gave it a little right rudder taking off into a brisk wind out of the southwest. As I cleared the buildings at the end of the runway and out over the interstate highway I suddenly realized I had left the sectional maps of my route in my car. Sectional maps show ground elevations, airports and tall towers sticking up into the high enough that they can be a flight hazard. They also show radio control facilities with all the radio frequencies. “AND” they also show restricted areas where it is illegal to fly below certain altitudes, good information you may desperately need to know. I hated to turn back…I did not want to turn back – I decided not to turn back. I’ve made this trip before, I know the way, I can just follow the highways, I’ll be allright without the maps.
The Turner Turnpike below me pointed straight toward my destination for the first 50 miles or so. It also pointed me straight into the wind. The brisk wind that I encountered at take off had grown stronger and stronger as the day warmed up. I could see the cars on the turnpike below me and I was still passing them but very slowly. The wind must be nearly half of my airspeed, I reasoned. The cruise speed of the Cessna 150 was only 90 miles per hour. That means It’s going to take me twice as long to get there. Oh, well, I’ll have enough fuel to make it.
Just about that time a second thought penetrated my brain. There is a restricted flight Zone around Fort Sill, and I don’t know just how far that no fly zone reaches out around the army base. But, I reasoned, since the army base is on the West side of the interstate highway the low altitude no flight zone is probably all on the West side too. OK, sez I, I’ll just stay on the East side of the highway and I’ll be alright.
About ten minutes later I began to see the strangest site. The land under me seemed to be divided up into one acre plots and exactly in the center of each of those plots sat an old car body. As I watched a puff of smoke and dust flew up from one of those car bodies. Then another and another puff of smoke and dust. Just then I heard the sound of those explosions going off. OH, OH !! I’m over the artillery target range and they are shooting those big cannons right at me!! They have to in order to hit those old cars. The shells must be passing right through the air space I’m flying in. I’ll bet the officers in charge of those guns have their field glasses trained on me and they are probably reading the tail numbers on this airplane right now and I am going to loose my flying license. Worse yet, I thought, one of those shells could hit this airplane. There I was, flying in a restricted air zone, flying against this wind, probably not going more that thirty five or forty miles an hour with artillery shells flying all around me. Should I turn around and go back or should I stay on course and fly out of the restricted airspace that way. Since they are looking at me right now, I reasoned, they will stop shooting till I’m out of the way… Hoping they wouldn’t hit me – Hoping they hadn’t seen me – I stayed on course and flew straight ahead. It seemed like an hour, but I got away without getting my tail shot off.
NOW I WANT TO ASK YOU A QUESTION. I KNOW I WAS STUPID BUT DID I DO THE RIGHT THING BY STAYING ON COURSE?? OR SHOULD I HAVE TURNED AROUND AND GOT OUT OF THERE AS FAST AS I COULD? PLEASE RESPOND & LET ME KNOW. Please comment.
By the way, I never did get that phone call – they never did come and take me away – I must assume either that they did not see me or that they blamed it on the stupidity of the pilot. Maybe they just avoided the paperwork by ignoring my intrusion into their air space.
See you,
Barnstormer
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