Aviation Is Serious "Bidness"

By Steve Bill Hanshew

July 9 - “Aviation is serious “bidness”, as my Beloved Uncle from East Tennessee would say. During my time in this “bidness” people have exceeded their limited vernacular in creative ways to impress on me the dire nature of flight. These folks seem to thrive on extolling the darkest aspects the “bidness” in efforts to get my undivided attention. I suppose this is done to jar you into a sense of practical caution when first venturing into it.  

This ain’t a friendly game of Parcheesi partner; it can turn you toes up as an unwilling recipient of a half-hearted eulogy. Or, so they would say. Although people, such as me, have never let it hinder us from having a little fun, we still get the “big” picture. Matters of aviation don’t cotton to fools and wanton folly, unless you’re trying to start an airline, than it’s “bidness” as usual. Other neophytes, who have been so dreadfully cautioned, tend to convulse into a state of controlled panic perennially waiting for the next shoe to drop. Paralyzed with fear, they return to the floral shop, leaving aviation behind. Can’t say that I blame them, florists live a safe life, thriving on the deaths of aviating fools.  

I was barely 18 years of age when I was given my first dark admonition by my flight instructor just prior to cutting me loose to shoot three takeoffs and landings, “Don’t screw up or you’ll wind up a smoking hole – now go have fun.” This had the desired effect of steeling my nerves for my imminent demise and I promised myself to survive the effort. I did, as you must have already guessed.  

My next brush with the aviation anvil of severity was just prior to being signed off as a local controller at an Army Air Traffic Control Tower. I considered myself a pretty hot commodity who could run air traffic around the pattern like a buxom Georgia Dolly running chickens round’ a truck patch. I was pretty full of myself.  

A curmudgeon of a Controller Examiner grabbed me by the arm just prior to signing off my Control Tower Operator ticket. “Remember, you screw up, and it will be the family of some dead pilot you’ll have to apologize to.” I gulped, took the ticket with a slightly shaking hand and tried to dispel the vision of death now implanted into my brain. Either he was trying to deflate my swelled head or actually thought I was a homicidal risk willing to run aircraft together for mere pleasure. I decided it was the former since he had already voluntarily signed my license.  

At any rate, I had some Hellified’ dreams for the next month, as flaming planes plummeted to the ground like roman candles all around my solitary control tower, as I stared in horror, hearing the last cries of dying pilots ringing in my headset, “You arrogant moron, I hope you’re happy!” I quickly got over it and didn’t once cause a bout of aluminum rain showers during seven years of practice.  

Learning how to properly prop a J-3 Cub, a sage came up to me and stated, “Keep propping it like that and you’ll lose an arm – or worse!” Worse meaning cut to shreds like a ginzu knife and scattered about the ramp. I got the message and modified my technique.  

My next round of aerial shock treatment occurred at 11,500 feet over a South Carolina patch of scrub they euphemistically called a drop zone. The door flew open and I was unceremoniously screamed at to get out of the airplane. As the wind ripped into the cabin I thought it odd that a fellow who I assumed liked me would want me to jump out an airplane with a fully functional engine. I had trained for just such an occasion and he must have sensed my deliberate caution. He yanked me up by my shoulder straps, face-to-face, and screamed, “FORGET TO PULL THAT “D” RING AND YOU’RE DEAD!” With that said I feebly leaped out of the door into open space.  

Needless to say, I heeded his bombastic advice and did as instructed. I even did it 189 more times and never forgot to pull a ripcord or, later on, yank out a pilot chute. By that time I was clinically insane or close to it, because I was actually having fun jumping out of airplanes. It was still serious “bidness”, but damned fun. During those hundred-plus jumps I had the opportunity to ride my reserve chute twice after my main had malfunctioned and dutifully remembered to chop my main prior to deploying my reserve.  

I guess that guy had made his point since I never broke an ankle or leg, much less burrow my own grave like the proverbial “lawn dart”.  By this time in my aviation career I was getting used to the fact that I would be incessantly harangued about impending death no matter what I did. I was beginning to think that the Wright Brothers hadn’t invented flying, but more along the lines of Edgar Allan Poe. However, People in this “bidness” seemed jolly enough. They liked to sing. The songs they sang weren’t what I’d call happy ditties. “Blood on the Risers” and coming home “On a Wing and A Prayer” were macabre to say the least, but seemed to go hand-in-hand with their deathbed fascination. 

I had come to the conclusion early on, that all of these people were either obsessed with death or cared very much for me, hoping that I wouldn’t fatally screw-up. Upon further reflection, I began to think they were ardently trying to avoid the liability of knowing or instructing me in case I did royally screw up. I began to have twinges of insecurity about “being” such a screw-up until I noticed that they often doled out the same dire advice to my peers.  

Oh, so I wasn’t the only fatal screw-up on the field. I guess all of these various aviation mentors had one goal in mind and that was to place this dark spot on the souls of their students and trainees that no amount of ego, complacency, or lunk-headeness would ever rinse away. That dark spot was the nagging source of doubt that probably saved us from ourselves. It was a twinge of mortality that kept us all in line with the program.  “Did I switch tanks? Did I remember to have that plane call beacon inbound?  Did I double-check the pin on my main, insuring that it was unencumbered?  Did I check the oil?  

This phantasm of fatality seemed to inspire a phobia for double-checking things, like the poor sot that compulsively checks all of the locks twice before going to bed. In their own strange way, all of my trainers and instructors had altered my behavior and imbedded in my brain a miniscule measure of self-doubt. By the time I received a multi-engine check ride, I had the death dirge down pat. “I know, I know, dead engine, dead foot – wrong foot – dead man.” The multi instructor appeared both annoyed and somewhat deflated, as I had nipped his failed engine eulogy in the bud. I looked over at him as if to console his wounded mentorship and recited the tome – “Hey Man Sorry, but this aviation stuff is serious bidness’!”