11:50 a.m. Wind nearly straight down the runway, from 150 at 25, gusting to 31. Visibility, 10 miles. Eight vehicles, a mix of sedans and pickup trucks each driven by a man alone, park scattered along the observation area at Hector International Field, the airport in Fargo, North Dakota. Most are pulled up close to […]
Curt Brickman is 57 years old. When I meet him, he’s wearing jeans, hiking shoes and a dark blue jacket. His cap says “Cold War Veteran.” He wears an Army pin in his lapel and sunglasses over his prescription glasses. Ten years in the service, he tells me. Here, I think, is a guy who’s […]
Flying has always been about looking out the window, finding the frontier, then finding home.
You’d never see it from the ground. A small stream runs through an ignorable culvert under a county road. In a car, it’s just a bump, if even that. Perhaps a flash, a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off water. You’d never think it was important. You’d never think you’d just crossed history. This morning, however, […]
Three thousand feet above the North Dakota prairie, on a warm, clear-sky morning, Mike Paulson gets a smile on his face. “Check this out,” he says. Mike takes his feet off the rudder pedals and puts the airplane into a bank to the left. Almost immediately, the nose squirrels hard to the right. “Adverse yaw,” […]
The scene is in a thousand movies. A clear night sky and a glass-calm ocean. A million brilliant stars, every one of them reflected by water. The horizon is difficult to find. Then some ship enters the scene, slowly, and the water is swirled in its wake, troubled just enough to mark the border between […]
The early instructions are clear. Abeam the numbers, reduce power. First flaps. Pitch for speed. When the far numbers are 45 degrees behind your shoulder, turn downwind to base. Pitch for speed. Second flaps. Watch your speed. There are stories about what comes next. Base to final. This is the most beautiful turn in the […]
