War Story No. 3

This war story is a short one because I don’t want to be long winded all the time. This story once again begins in pilot training and deals with the complexity of language and our different dialects. As preparatory work for the story, just let me say I am a native born Texan and sometimes I revert back to my native language when I speak. You know, with a lot of draws and you-alls, etc.

As you know, part of the regiment of flying requires the pilot to preflight his steed to ensure that it is properly configured and ready for flight. This is a long time tradition just as mounting the aircraft on the left side is. This comes from our roots of US Army Calvary days and how we treated horses. On this particular day I was accomplishing one of my first pre-flights on my first jet, the T-37 Tweet. Part of the preflight requires the inspection of the tires. They teach you to verify the number of chord layers remaining, look at the overall tire condition, verify the tire pressure is correct, check brakes and landing gear condition, etc. It is not an easy job to do because the clearance between the ground and the wing (where the main landing gear is) is very minimal. I would say about three feet maximum. You know, the size of a small pygmy. So average people don’t fit under it very well. This fact makes looking closely at the tire something hard to do unless you are on your belly crawling around. On this particular day I was down there doing my close inspection when I noticed something black and bubbly on the tire. Upon close inspection I determined that it was tar from the payment joint where the aircraft had been parked. Being Arizona with a ramp temperature of more than 100 degrees it was not uncommon to find a lot of the sticky stuff everywhere. I remember thinking that no one had ever spoken about the disaster awaiting on takeoff when you try and takeoff with a tire that is covered in tar. So being the new student I was determined it would be best at this time to ask the IP if it was OK. Remember we are on an airport with hundreds of airplanes making lots and lots of noise. So I crawl out from under the wing and point to the tire. My IP leans in a little closer to try and hear me so I shout out “tar” meaning there was pavement tar on the tire. He shakes his head up and down in acknowledgement and repeats back “Tire, yes that is a Tire.” I become instantly frustrated in the fact that he believes I have reverted to my native tongue and am calling the tire a tar. So I yell even louder “No tar, tar.” At which point he repeats back “Yes, tire, tire.” Now I am really frustrated and scared in that his buffoonery is about to put our lives in danger on takeoff from the deadly tar on the tire. So I am about to really give him “my what for” because he is incapable of understanding my spoken word and because he was treating me like some hick who had never seen anything from the 20th Century before. So this time with slow and deliberate pronunciation I say for the last time “No tar, tar.” Just like clockwork he repeats back “Yes, tire, tire.” Now I on the verge of a massive coronary so I am about to grab him by his harness and shake the living hell out of him when I notice a small twinge in his lips as he is about to break out into heavy laughter. He gives a hearty laugh and says “Yes, is see there is tar on the tire and it is not a problem.” This allowed me to complete my preflight all the while thinking what an idiot I was and how he had really gotten to me.

I completed that flight that day without any adverse effects from the tar on the tire. I got a healthy respect for my IP on that day as well. He taught me that flying did not have to be serious business all the time and that you were allowed to joke around sometimes. I followed that example when I was an IP years later. Always trying to get a laugh on the students part about a business that could be fun as well as serious. To this day I always think about the “tars” on my airplane as I get ready to go fly. Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and goodbye to 2009.

This entry was posted on 29. December 2009 at 11:51 and is filed under War Stories, Airplanes, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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