And You Will Find Love

Paul admired the plane. "She's a pretty little thing, isn't she."

"She's beautiful."

Paul began instructing her enthusiastically. "First, let me tell you a little about her, because you're going to fly her before you know it."

Barbara liked hearing that. And her instructor didn't sound like he resented that she wanted to do what he did, fly an airplane.

Paul apologized even before starting to explain about the plane. "I'm new at this, so I hope I don't sound like a bus tour guide. The Piper Cub is the airplane's answer to Henry Ford's Model T automobile. It was built by a man named Piper in Pennsylvania at the start of the Depression in 1930. He meant it to be a cheap plane for anyone to buy and fly."

"Why is she called a 'Cub?'"

"After the name of its engine, the Brownbach Kitten. Designers are working on a new model with an enclosed cockpit, but this is the original, the open two-seater E-2. As you'll see when we go up in it, you'd better wear an aviator's cap and goggles. Shall we take her up?"

"You mean now?" Barbara had expected weeks of lessons before her instructor would take her for a ride in the plane.

"Why not?"

While they both put on leather caps and goggles, Paul told her something else about the plane.

"I have to warn you... For most people, the hardest thing about flying a Piper Cub is getting into it."

Barbara laughed, but Paul said he meant it, and explained.

"Everyone comes up with their own way to get into the cockpit. They're all variations on the basic necessity to bend yourself double and twist through 180 degrees at the same time. Kind of like a circus contortionist."

She hadn't expected that learning to fly would be fun, too.

It wasn't exactly fun getting into the rear cockpit, but she made it, then her instructor followed her into the front seat.

Soon as Paul saw his student was strapped in, he started the engine.

"Notice the engine fires at once. Taxiing is easy enough, but it takes a bit of practice before your heels stop slipping off the little brake pedals that rise from the cockpit floor. Good thing you're wearing low-heeled shoes. Don't try flying in high heels." She liked that he said it in a way that she knew he wasn't meaning to put her down for being a woman.

"You have to kind of swing from side to side, to see around the engine," Paul continued. "Check the switches and carburetor heat. If you're flying solo, reach a long way forward from the back seat to reset the altimeter."