Flight of The Bass.

Flight of The Bass.

 

It was a clear morning at 3600 FT. I look at the radar and a plane is level with ours and we get  an alarm that we are getting closer. I could see the markings on the plane and….

 

Six months earlier, I was at camp and we were coming home from Lake Compounce in  late July. I was surfing the web on the bus. I had a lot of spare cellular data so I could stream on youtube all I wanted. I found out about this program called Civil Air Patrol or C.A.P.  This came at a good time. After the football season from hell, where I got beat up by my own team. It was late November when I tried out a meeting.

 

I was greeted by Sergeant Hammer (or Supply Sergeant Hammer as he is known). I almost immediately made a new friend, his name was Banks or that his last name. My first interaction  was  out on the driveway which is fairly long, so it’s easy to do drills. The Sergeant explained how to do attention, right face, left face, about face, etc… Civil Air Patrol is supposed to be like the military so, I went with the stereotype of  boot camp calling everyone that is higher rank sir. It turns out this is a classic mistake. So when I messed up on a command. I said “sorry sir” and the sargent  points to his Rank and yells ¨IT’S SARGENT!!!¨ The way he said it  made us giggle. I thought,” this belongs in a try not to laugh video.¨  He wasn’t really a drill sergeant but he was still like a 15 year old cadet who was a sergeant in C.A.P. The rest of the night whenever someone made a mistake, they would say ¨ops sir.¨ He said the classic, “ IT’S SARGENT!”

 

It was three weeks later when I joined officially. You have to go to 3 meetings to join and pay 35 dollars. The major says, “ we got some new Cadets”.  I was chosen first. I was the only person in the entire squadron from Easton, I sarcastly thought ,¨what a surprise.¨  They did their claps lose I call it really just all clapping unison.

 

Two weeks  later.  I was at the Civil Air Patrol gift exchange I brought a model F-15 that you can put together. I figured a bunch of people go for that because everyone here is interested in planes. Murdock opened his present and it was a box wrapped up in duct tape in side there was a tiny box with a sticky note that read ,Oppenheimer has your gift. Next up was good all Sergeant Hammer. I whispered to Banks ¨watch him get a Barbie doll.¨ I was right he got a barbie doll. Later he was sipping is Coca-Cola. Banks said¨ how that knock off brand of soda sir. He replied¨It’s actually quite good wait a minute  IT’S SARGENT!!¨ I thought “his guy is so funny. I could not believe he fell for that trick. The It’s sargent joke will never get old.

 

One week later. I was at Ecc camp over Holiday break. It was a friday we were going indoor skydiving. I did not know what to expect so I thought this should be interesting.

When I went in there it was a huge fan in a tub with netting for safety. I went in and it was like as if you stick your head out of a car on the highway but double the wind.                                           I tried to do a dab, bad idea. A dab apparently makes you do 360. Up and down you move your knees. The bank you turn your arms a little bit.  To spin or yaw you do a dab. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. It felt like you were flying but basically were flying have lift to of the ground. It was easy to control it didn’t take a lot to turn.

 

About a week later. I was out of Civil Air Patrol meeting and we’re going to do our monthly safety briefing ugg. They saw me in the rest of the Moto cadets for kind of bored so major Krushak said ¨I have a announcement for Moto cadets. I will be doing O.flights(Orientation Flights)¨   Every kid gets O.flights are basically what a cadet gets to fly a plane. Yes they fly a real plane not this RC stuff. Boy did that wake us up. He asked who has not got there first Flight. Me and 16 others raised their hands. He said”Please come to the back office to make sure you have all the requirements done. If you do not we will have to ind a way to get those requirement before the flight.” He helped me and a second cadet get the requirements. He asked us some questions. The questions where and I quote”A cell phone number in case of cancellations,Wight and hight,monthly safety briefing,parental consent, ground handling test,cap id number,and preferred slot for flight.  I was scheduled to fly at 1030 hours or 10:30 am. It comes at no cost to the pilot and cadet but sorry tax payers this comes from the department of defence budget.

 

3 days later. I’m at Sikorsky airport and we get in the plane everything’s going all fine. We try to turn one the engine the propeller goes around once and it stops. We try again again the same thing they tried jump starting it same thing again. We grounded the plane and turned out there’s a problem with the battery. This is  a 640$ repair.  Wah Wah Wah.  

 

One week later on a Friday I’m at Hibachi with my Dad. My Mom was in Cape May showing Mika to get extra points before the Westminster dog show. I was telling the story of how the plane broke down. The Habchi guy was about to do the thing where they sling the vegetable and you try to catch it in your mouth. My phone buzzes I said” hold on a second.”  I read the email and it said will be rescheduling Flights. The hibachi Chef heard this and he said that I would get a free fried ice cream at the end. I up early in the morning gaming as usual. My game of War Thunder was rudely interrupted by email from google. I go to close the email. Then, I got another email this time, it actually was worth losing a battle in War Thunder. I read it. It said that all flights would be rescheduled to 10 a.m. tomorrow. I was really excited and the next day I got up bright and early took little Wingo and little Rosie out. Those puppies love to chase tennis balls. I go out of the car put on my jacket. I went to a small diner called the Blue Sky Diner and it was a good way to start your day off. It was 5 minutes away from the airport so I can eat breakfast then head out to the airport. I go to the airport.  We discussed the flight plan in the same briefing room as last week and  just before my fail with a plane engine. We were at the same airport and landing in Massachusetts. We start the engine and during engine start I had my fingers crossed so history might not repeat itself. We put on the brakes after the engine starts and we rev it up to full power. To taxi to the runway and I spotted a plane coming in for landing so I said “plane 3 cock high.” I start to feel a lot of joy and vibration from rev the engine. We get on the runway and start taking off.  I always try to lean forward when I am in a plane taking off. It is my odd tradition.

 

As soon as you got airborne the View gets better and better. I was able to spot some major landmarks like a coal power plant next to the Bluefish Stadium. And of course a Bass’s best friend that owes him royalties for his using his name,Bass Pro Shop. We headed towards Hartford on the coast of Connecticut it was a beautiful view. Add about 1,500 feet the instructor said¨ you want to fly it.¨ I responded ¨Yes sir.¨ Now I was flying an aircraft. I flew us towards Hartford we had to stay above 2000 ft now. We’re at about 3600 ft and get a blip on a radar. A plane is coming right towards us so that made her ask me to do 45 degree Bank to the right and after that to do a 45-degree thanks the left. That doesn’t work so we do with 65 degree bank you feel some G forces during his bank.  The plane is still coming at us now I can see the markings on the plane and we do a 20 degree nose down. It was a close call. We where at least a football field away. For two planes that is close. We started to fly a little bit more inland sooner. Later we got down to about 1,000 feet just for a perfect bird’s eye view and it was on our flight plan.

 

I flew over Compo beach in Westport where C.L.C. camp whent every Wednesday of the summer  We headed towards Massachusetts I saw lake compounce below and I could clearly see Phobia. Phobia is a bright orange coaster so it was extremely visible  from 1000 ft. We after another half hour of flying we saw  a bunch of roller coasters in front of us. I knew exactly where we were we were right over Six Flags New England we flew about 600 or 500 feet above the new skyscreamer. The New England Skyscreamer has riders go 409 feet in the air. It is the biggest swing carousel in the world.  It was really something else going that low. Soon after, we started to see a lot more woods. I start align the plane up with the airstrip or airfield. The major takes back the controls and we saw some people waving they didn’t look like they are getting much success. So we abort the approach. Unlike the busy city airport that we took off from in Stratford this one barely even in it a taxiway. They did not even have a control tower so we had a radio other planes.  We fly low over the people that are fly by on them and wave and some little kids I guess around 9 or 10 they were excited. I was impressed with the major’s flying. I got in the back seat in the other connect flew a plane and we’re taking off in a radio chest and it’s so loud they have to wear headset it to talk to each other. The radio had a problem with the cord so the major could talk I couldn’t see but talk and here the other Cadet can only hear so all of a sudden Elementary School game. But it involves flying a plane.  After a landing we weren’t able to fix the problem so basically we had a fly like this all the way back it was a pretty smooth light and definitely was a cool moment. We landed in Stratford on hour later. I told everyone I knew about this.  I will remember flying a plane for the first time and I will cherish it forever.

 

The end

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1 thought on “Flight of The Bass.

  1. Dear Nate,
    How is your lead connected to the rest of the story? The lead is never finished in the rest of the story.

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