West by 180

Pick up, pack up, load up, I’m getting good at this. Heavy items put as far forward as possible in the aircraft. Last thing I want is an aft CG (center of gravity). Why, you ask? Well, with too much weight, too far back, especially at slow speeds, there may not be enough elevator control to keep the aircraft flying. Or at best it could be difficult to control.

I start up and taxi out from my campsite to the end of the strip around the cow patties. It’s like trying to avoid land mines, except when you hit one it’s just a bump and not an explosion. Make a full run-up, complete check of the engine. This runway is only 1300 feet long, the elevation of the field is 4600 feet and the aircraft is fully loaded. Most small airplanes could not takeoff from this strip fully loaded and some not at all. So what could you do in this case? Fly half the gear out to somewhere else, like Green River airport 15 minutes away. Then come back for the rest. There’s nothing like that peace of mind, knowing that you won’t have a weight problem on departure. I’ve “been there and done that,” as the saying goes.

Anyway my old Cessna 180 is an outstanding backcountry aircraft. I line up, point it down the runway with low bushes under the wings. The bushes wiggle and wave as I apply full power for departure. The sand is a little soft here at the end, so when I apply power, it’s rather slow to start rolling. But rock and roll it does andtwo-thirds of the way down the runway I am in the air. There are some low trees to clear at the end and then I am already in a turn to fly around Mexican Mountain, intercept the San Rafael River and proceed downstream. Always fly downstream; at least that’s what it says in the book, Mountain Flying Bible. That’s so you won’t get caught in a canyon that narrows and prevents you from turning around or climbing out.

Well that applies 99% of the time. Little did I know I was about to experience that elusive 1%. No one told me about The Black Box on the San Rafael. Why should they? No one I know has flown through it. I have talked to some whitewater rafters since then. They told me of the rapids and the narrow canyon with the sheer vertical walls extending upwards over two thousand feet. But I did not know this at the time, so on I flew.

And here I was, what’s the saying, “Fat, Dumb, and Happy.” Well I certainly am not fat, and I’m not dumb, but I was happy. In fact I felt great. Here I was doing what I love and in this magical place. This was the case until I made that first turn into the “Black Box.” I knew things were bad when the first words to come out of my mouth were, “Oh shit”.

Fear gripped me. I mean real fear, not just scary movie fear. The type of fear that you have time to experience. The fear that you may be going to crash into these 2000 foot high sheer vertical walls. The feeling that you may be going to die.

Okay, the fear would have to come later, if I get out of the canyon alive, that is. Then will come the shakes,maybe the stutters, or the weak legs. But for now I’m too busy to think of being afraid. I’m too busy flying, attempting to survive, to feel the effects of fear; it comes afterwards. I have a technique, a flying mode if you will. And I tell my students this. When things get too busy, getting to the point of overload, tune everything out. Ignore the radios, ignore the passengers (you can explain later) put all else from your mind and just “fly the airplane.” I’m good at this. Of course I had no passengers and no one talking on the radio, but I went into my full flying mode, concentration of 110%.

Well all of a sudden here I was, literally “between a rock and a hard place.” It was as if the sunny day had immediately become cloudy as I flew into this narrow alleyway between these 2000-foot high ecipices of sheer rock where the sun seldom shone. If I looked straight up, a little sunlight spilled over the ridge. I had the feeling I was flying down a dark tunnel with the walls beginning to close in on me, and indeed maybe they were. I had entered the canyon at a speed of 120 MPH, but as fast as I could slowed down and extended flaps. For you non-flyers, flaps are an additional surface that can be extended aft and down behind the wings. This gives you more wing surface so you can fly slower and have a smaller radius of turn, something I desperately needed at the moment. There is a trade-off, of course. It creates drag, but the 180 has enough additional power to compensate.

The 180 has a large manual flap lever on the floor between the seats. This allowed me to slow down quickly. Good thing, too, as I was already at the next turn. It was a 180 degree turn back the other way. I pulled the wing up 90 degrees, applied some power, and pulled back on the elevator control. I don’t know how many Gs were applied, but I could feel the force as I was pushed down into the seat. (Gs are a measurement of the force of gravity. We are at one G as we stand or walk on the surface of the earth.) Remember the loop-the-loop and the roller-coaster at the carnival? When you are pushed down into your seat, you are pulling Gs.

Each time I completed a turn and could roll wings level, I applied full power and climbed as much as possible. I could see the reflection of the sun on the rim, like looking out of a deep cavern and not being able to reach the top. After a few more turns, I don’t remember how many, I was able to crest the rim into another day, another time. It was a different world of sunlight, blue sky and visibility that reached for miles.

It was then that I realized that the airplane and I had been one for the last five minutes. We do indeed fly well together. Now the feelings of fear, joy, and elation, all set in – we have lived to fly another day. Winston Churchill once said that one of life’s sublime experiences was to be shot at and missed. I now felt that I had just had one of those sublime experiences.

It was a rough ride back to Glenwood Springs. At every bump I tasted SAND. You would think I would never want to go back to Mexican Mountain, but it was one of my favorite places, (not counting sand or snowstorms, and without Black Box departures)!