Born To Fly Read online

  The sun that had risen over ten hours ago was now setting. The sky was becoming dark and a low-lying endless sheet of cloud was forming over the ocean. Having the sun set behind me made me realise just how long I had been flying.

  I neared the coast and was told to contact Los Angeles approach. Cool! Things were starting to become more of a happy reality and less of a mind-numbing stress. I chatted away using the aircraft’s standard radios and after so long using the HF it was a welcome treat to not have to yell. Finally, in the far distance I spotted a sliver of darkness on the horizon. It was the mainland of the United States.

  I was still watching the fuel gauges as the sky darkened very quickly. Both now sat in the yellow zone and although I knew I still had sufficient fuel it was enough to play with my mind. I was switched to ‘So-Cal’ or ‘Southern California’ approach as I neared the coast. I watched the solid block of low-lying cloud dissipate when it reached the land, something I had never seen before. The hills of California neared and the coast zipped under the nose. I was the happiest kid on the face of the planet.

  So-Cal approach called me up – ‘Victor Hotel Oscar Lima Sierra, we have you tracking via Santa Barbara on your flight plan but if you would like direct to Van Nuys that would be available. Please note though, that will take you over water. Are you okay with that?’

  For the first time in fourteen hours I laughed out loud. Was I okay with flying over water? I tracked direct and watched the lights of Santa Barbara pass by the left wing tip. Traffic was a ‘Southwest 737 crossing right to left and 1000 feet above’. Sweet.

  I dialled up the automated airport weather and information frequency for Van Nuys airport, hoping Runway 16 Right was operational, as it had been a dream of mine since the very beginning to land on that runway. As I listened in, I heard them broadcast that the ‘Runway in use’ was 16 Right. I was beyond excited.

  I tracked towards the airport above the lights of Los Angeles and I had never seen so many lights in my life. I was told to report the airport in sight, looked ahead towards where the avionics were telling me the airport was located and thought I spotted it. I let the controller know I had the airport sighted and he cleared me for a visual approach. I pushed the nose down and squinted harder, but what I had thought was the airport actually wasn’t. I didn’t need to be on the news for landing on a highway.

  The controller queried my lack of descent. I admitted I couldn’t see the field, and he asked whether I would like to conduct an instrument approach to bring me right down to the runway. However, I didn’t think I had sufficient fuel to start something like that, nor the energy if it wasn’t really required. He radar vectored me around to the right, I nosed down once again and there, ahead in the mass of lights, was a runway. It was a moment of utter relief, a familiar sight of runway lights, the exact spot where this flight would safely come to an end and the hours of decisions, stress and calculations would all be proved correct. I was beyond relieved, I was proud.

  I touched down without event after fifteen hours in the air. I had flown around 2150 nautical miles and completed the longest leg of the flight. I swung the Cirrus around and lined up with the marshal, just missing Jim Carrey’s private jet. As I shut down I could see a bunch of people waiting alongside the plane, including both Mum and Dad. This was the first time I had seen a familiar face since leaving home.

  I climbed from the aeroplane and carefully stepped down off the wing. With legs like jelly I said hello to Mum and Dad and took a deep breath. Mum was a mess, simply overrun with relief that this leg, about which she had heard so much, was over. Dad was much like myself, proud and relieved yet stunned and overwhelmed by the moment. I hadn’t seen Mum or Dad since leaving Australia and to now catch up was fantastic. But regardless of how many stories I had to tell the day had been too long and the stories would have to wait.

  I hopped into the back seat of the hire car and stared silently out the window as we drove to the motel. I wasn’t tired, in fact wide awake with pure adrenaline running through my body. What I did have was a wonderful sense of accomplishment. We wandered from the motel room and at 1am sat in McDonalds for food and a de-brief of the flight across the Pacific. It was strange to live in a moment that had been scrutinised for so long. Every detail had been broken down, thousands of people had contributed to the fact that here I was, sitting in the USA, having crossed the Pacific Ocean in a single-engine aeroplane.

  CHAPTER

  14

  The romance of Van Nuys

  Van Nuys airport sits inside the city limits of Los Angeles, within the San Fernando Valley. Even though it is free of airline traffic, it is one of the busiest general aviation or GA airports in the world. The Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) sees airliners arrive and leave, a hub for transporting millions of people all over the world, but smaller private aircraft need somewhere to go. That place is Van Nuys. It is home to all sorts of aircraft, from small two-seat training machines to private business jets as large as any airliner. The rich and famous use it as their home airport, taking charter flights and private jets to places throughout the USA and across the world. News and firefighting helicopters who work around the Los Angeles area are based at Van Nuys, and it is also the place were students do flight training. Surviving war aircraft as well as enthusiasts’ planes of all shapes and sizes fill the endless lines of hangars, the diversity of flying machines at Van Nuys is far greater than the usual collection seen at a local Australian airport.

  Van Nuys is the subject of the movie-length documentary 16 Right (One-Six Right), named after the main runway: it is the story of Van Nuys airport from its beginning in the pioneering days of aviation through to the present. That documentary is very special to me. During my training, my mate Jonno insisted that I watch it. ‘How can you call yourself a pilot if you haven’t watched One-Six Right?’ he asked me.

  He gave me the DVD and I settled down to watch it: I was captivated immediately. One Six Right took the magic of flight and turned it into an awe-inspiring, unforgettable visual story, with fabulous pictures of planes from pioneering biplanes to state-of-the-art private jets, all with the accompaniment of great music. There were pics of aviation icons, people who had followed their passion and achieved something great, owners of world-renowned aviation companies, actors, stunt pilots, racing pilots, pilots who had flown around the world. It made me long more than anything to get into a plane and fly off, I didn’t care where, just as long I was in the air. As the credits rolled at the end I wished there was more. There wasn’t, so to compensate I watched it again. And again. I can practically recite the commentary now, and the faces of the aviation figures and their aircraft are etched in my memory. And when we were planning the route I knew that top of the list of places to visit was Van Nuys airport.

  After the adrenaline-filled McDonalds debrief upon my arrival into Van Nuys, I ventured to a welcome bed. I set the alarm for a few hours later, but crashed immediately; the adrenaline had worn off and the previous day had caught up with me. When the alarm woke me I rolled over to check the time and went straight back to sleep for a bit longer. It was not yet afternoon, and I thought it was okay still to be in bed. But before too long I was up and dressed and set off for Van Nuys once again; I had to be there midmorning to film a short piece for Australian television covering the flight across the Pacific.

  On the way to the airport, I could really take in the landscape in daylight. The mountains in the Los Angeles area were large, dry and red, looking just as if they were from a western. As we headed towards the city of Los Angeles, I thought about the last few weeks. I had left Australia in the winter, with the cold mornings leaving dew on the aircraft. I had flown into thicker and more humid air, seeing the cold temperatures give way to the thick atmosphere of the Pacific islands. Already I had seen beaches, islands of all shapes and sizes, more water than Noah and his ark, thunderstorms, rain that was sideways, up and down, light and heavy, volcanoes, lava formations and now the red, dry mountains as se
en by John Wayne. It was not easy to take all this in.

  When the hire car arrived, the Cirrus was already outside the hangar. Signature Flight Support, a well-known Fixed Based Operator (FBO), has a huge base of aviation clients and takes care of the travel needs of the rich and famous. With Signature now taking care of me during my stopover, it was a new level of service that I could really get used to.

  After an hour or so of filming I said good bye to US correspondent for Channel 9 Denham Hitchcock and the crew. Mum, Dad and I were then taken on a tour of the airport. We poked our heads into various hangars, with a quick sneak peek at a P51 Mustang from World War II that belonged to Tom Cruise. Could things get any better?

  With Mum and Dad, I zipped off to Wal-Mart where we bought a large doona cover, then returned to the aircraft which I started to prepare for the trip across the States. I could say goodbye to the HF radio and the ferry tank; I would use only the standard aircraft radios and was flying short legs that required only the standard fuel tanks in the wings. I covered the fuel tank with the doona cover, making sure all the taps and pumps were turned off and out of harm’s way. After a quick clean of the windows, we were ready to go. I had one more day in Van Nuys before starting the trek east.

  That evening in the motel I wrote a blog, sent some emails and updated everybody at home. Then the guys at Signature emailed me to ask whether I would like to have lunch with Clay Lacy, one of the iconic figures from One Six Right and the current business owner of Van Nuys airport. Would I?

  We arranged to meet at the Squadron Restaurant, a small café that faces onto the tarmac of Van Nuys. I got there early and wandered around the room for half an hour, just discovering the items that hung from the walls: pieces of aircraft shot up during the war, photos of young men my age having returned from combat, story after story of fear, determination and bravery that widened my eyes. On every table was a headset, just in case you wanted to listen to air traffic control while you were munching on your burger. I was in heaven.

  Clay Lacy arrived, a big bear of a man in his eighties, wearing a sharp suit. He shook my hand and apologised for being late. He had an aura about him that seemed to captivate everyone in the room. Clay had been born in Wichita, Kansas, the city that some consider the heart of aviation. Beginning flight training in his teens, he had notched up around 2000 hours by the time he was nineteen. He started flying for United Airlines as a copilot on the DC-3, went on to fly the Convair 340, the DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, DC-8, DC-10, the Boeing 727 and the Boeing 747-400. His time with United, then, saw him move from a propeller-driven plane to a four-engine jet airliner, one of the largest aircraft in the world.

  Mid career he took time off from United Airlines to join the California Air National Guard, where he flew the F-86 Sabre jet, a single-seat fighter. His time in the National Guard included active duty in Berlin, flying the C-97 Stratofreighter to Japan and Vietnam. And then in 1964 he took on something that would become a key element in the modern Van Nuys airport: he flew a Learjet, the first business jet, into Van Nuys.

  A few years later he founded Clay Lacy Aviation, which focused on corporate aviation and business jets, and he went on to create one of the largest corporate aviation companies in the world. He flew a P51 fighter in the Reno Air Races alongside fellow aviation legend Bob Hoover, he has helped revolutionise air-to-air filming and he holds nearly thirty world speed records. He retired in 1992 after nearly forty-two years of accident-free aviation.

  With more than 50,000 flying hours, Clay Lacy is a hero whose career has spanned one of the most important periods in modern aviation, and he is still going strong. And he was having lunch with me!

  Clay and I started to chat. I was blown away by his interest in Teen World Flight; he said he was impressed by what we had achieved so far and wanted to know where it would go from here. I couldn’t believe that someone with so much experience was so interested in something I was doing. I tried to limit the number of questions I was throwing at him, without much success.

  When we finished lunch Clay asked whether I would like to look around his hangars. Aaaah, yes please. I got into his car and we headed to his office, zipping through the security gate and out onto the tarmac. For the next little while we strolled in and out of hangars, looking at everything from business jets to a DC3; Clay has some very cool aircraft. I sat in the DC3, the P51 that he raced at Reno and the first Learjet to arrive at Van Nuys. It was unreal: I was touring the airport I had known so well from One Six Right with Clay Lacy himself.

  Clay signed my pilot’s logbook and we said goodbye. I went back to the Cirrus, the happiest kid on earth.

  The rest of the day passed in checking the plane for takeoff, and so did the following day. It was ready to go and I had checked over the next few flights. I dropped into Channel 9 just across from Sunset Boulevard. It felt very odd to be standing looking over Los Angeles but surrounded by pictures of Australian TV presenters, including Charles Woolley.

  I had seen and experienced Van Nuys in a way that was unique, I thought. It was something I knew I would never forget.

  Today was the day to discover just what flying in the United States was really like. I was going from Van Nuys to Ryan Aerodrome in Tucson, Arizona, the first leg towards the east coast.

  As I was finishing off the pre-take-off checks, the last thing I expected was to see someone I knew. But I looked up to see a familiar figure coming towards the Cirrus. It was John Deakin, one of the American pilots who had given me a real helping hand during my Advanced Pilot Seminar engine management course back in Queensland. John is a pilot with over 40,000 hours in every type of aircraft you can imagine. I had read many of his frequent blogs online and his stories were phenomenal. John had taken a keen interest in the flight and now driven from his home in Camarillo, an hour’s drive away, to see me off on my way to Tucson and to wish me well. It was great to see him again, and we more or less picked up where we left off. I called my new buddies on the 1800-WX-BRIEF phone line and had a flight plan in the system and a departure time in hand. After taking a few photos to mark the occasion I said goodbye for a while to John, Mum, Dad and the crew from Signature Flight Support. I wasn’t scared about flying through airspace that was unfamiliar to me; I was intrigued and eager to take on what I thought would be a challenge.

  I started the plane as normal and began to prepare for a departure as the engine warmed, not that it needed much help during mid July in California. I called up Van Nuys air traffic control and requested my clearance and was told to stand by. For nearly half an hour my clearance was pushed back little by little. I just sat there while everyone awkwardly stood by; I could see they were thinking it was a long way back to Australia at this breakneck speed.

  Finally, thirty minutes later I was given a clearance. The clearance is an approval to enter controlled airspace, restricted areas and different sections of sky; with a longer leg they can be quite lengthy. The controller warned me that it was ‘a long one’. As he spoke I wrote, ending up with something the length of a short novel but I read back each word one by one and somehow I had the information correct on the first go. It was going to be a good day.

  I taxied to the holding point just short of Runway 16 Right and because my flight plan had been filed to fly within clouds I was taken to the front of the queue. I waited for a Gulfstream business jet to touch down and at the same time heard a broad American voice from in a nearby aircraft ask the control tower ask, regarding my registration, ‘Where does a Victor-Hotel aircraft come from?’ A very long pause followed the tower’s response of, ‘Uhhh um, Australia’. I guess it was a bit of a novelty, even at a place like Van Nuys.

  I rolled down the runway and flew into the skies of the USA for the first time in daylight. I looked down and waved goodbye to a small group of very patient bystanders before turning left and climbing up, up and away. The city was dense, the surrounding mountains were huge. It was amazing just to look down and imagine which famous person lived where. As I crossed over the
Colorado River only an hour after my departure, the same river that flows through the Grand Canyon, I also caught a glimpse of Palm Springs, the home of a phenomenal air museum full of warbirds and a ridiculous number of geographically disoriented desert-bound palm trees.

  I levelled off at 11,000 feet in order to clear the mountains that sat only just below the Cirrus. The city had become desert with the only sign of life being the little tinge of green that lined the banks of the Colorado River. I was being pleasantly surprised at the ease of flying in the US. Every now and then I would be passed off to another air traffic control centre, just like home, but things were much more relaxed. The controllers were really nice and laid back as they vectored me towards Ryan Aerodrome in Tucson, Arizona and gave instructions about when to descend. After a short, easy three hour flight I was lined up for the approach to the runway based solely on instruments from inside the cockpit and then transferred over to the tower. I was cleared to land but due to the winds was given a last-minute runway change. It was no big deal, they were telling me to fly to the right as I wished and that I was cleared to land on the new runway. I remember banking the aircraft around but spending most of the time looking at the desert floor. Hey look, a cactus!

  I touched down and taxied to parking. Ryan Aerodrome, I was sure, would be a great place. I had experienced so much freedom when flight planning across the USA, freedom I doubted I would have anywhere else, so I had decided to make the most of it. For this reason I had done some research on cool places to stop over. I had just arrived at one, included on my cool list because of Todd’s Restaurant: it was almost on the runway.