Thursday, September 27, 2007

N62365 - Only remains, Memories and pictures


Monday, September 4th.
Cessna, flown by a solo student had an accident. Though instructors were not allowed to escape a single word about it, Vague Infos seemed to find it's way to the students ears and there wasnot a single soul who could restrain from talking about it, with doubts and fears in their faces Groups of students could be seen almost everywhere, at the study room, main hall, dining room, outside the school having the same conversation about "The Crash".
"Which aircraft?"
"Who's in it?"
"Any consequences?"
"How did it happened?",
They were desperately asking anyone, who they felt could feed them with the answers about the incident, but to their dissapointment, they could get nothing. As the sun went down, all they could do was to wait for the next day, when everything's going to come out in open.

Tuesday , September 5th,
The first news we heard, the student who had the accident was completely uninjured, was such a relief for everyone, smile came to everyone's lips. But then the second news completely sulked me down, the aircraft was Cessna 62365, and it was completely destroyed.

Me, personally, have always prefer cessnas than the piper cherokees since i started my aviation course, till now, in my instrument phase. I have had check outs and flew cherokee couples of times, Found out they are comfortable, have new nav aids such as GPS and all, are more reliable since they are new and maintained but that mean nothing to me. Landings, i find the most significant part of the flight, and the feel i get during landing from a Cessna, never could i imagine in Cherokee, i guess.
And 62365, had always been my favourite one among the cessnas, and had shared heck of a great time.
Though my first flight was not in it, My maximum private hours that i have logged were in 62365;
I did my checkride in 62365;
I did most of my cross-country hour building in 62365, and the good part was most of the flight was during the day. You see, One could not even dream of getting an hour of flight during day in their baby cherokees unless scheduled, yet everyone will be after it, waiting if somebody who's scheduled could not turn up so they can fly, while 62365 would be completely deserted thus making me fortunate enough to be end up at bed for night sleep;
During a VFR [Visual Flight Rules] Flight, without being in contact with ATC [Air traffic controller] when I look below, all the landmarks, yeah, the same landmarks which is completely different when am in land makes me feel that am the optimum height that one can ever imagine of. The same skyscrapers for which i used to pull my head up, now seems so tiny, The same rivers and highways, which used to seem never ending, has finally come to an end. But when am in contact with ATC, those communications such as " Citation ***** fly flight level 200, 737 fight level 300, American Eagle ***** Maintain airspeed of 250 knots", made me feel small. How I wish there was no altitude restriction for me and i can go as high as them, How I wish I could go as fast as them. Anyways, while I was flying back to my airport from WileyPost airport with a friend, and yeah, in 62365 ofcourse, at about 5500 ft, we were notified by the ATC that we have a traffic about 7 miles, A BOEING at 4500 and is descending, will be passing below us. We were like what the heck, We were so excited because that was some hell of an encounter and yeah in 62365, the same aircraft which used to be flying about 20000 + feet above us now is right below us;

Another encounter i had while i was flying 62365 couple of months earlier when i was flying VFR Cross-Country to Abilene without being in contact with the ATC. Before i took off, I could see some low clouds, and when i took the weather, I was told that there were some few scattered layer of clouds at 3000 over Arlington, my home base airport, and the enroute, and destination clouds was reported to be clear. Took off since it's scattered which was supposed to be out of my way in any second. I was flying at 2500 all the way to Cleburne, which is about 1/3 of the distance from Arlington to Abilene and to my suprise, the layer was so wide spread that i thought it's never going to end, flew for about couple of minutes more until i decided to return back to Arlington. As i made an 180 turn and was heading back, another cessna flew right below me about 200 - 300 feet and i did not realised until it passed. Scared the shit out of me, i was totally tranfixed at the windscreen, Now I totally disregarded the sectional chart and anything inside the cockpit but I did made sure i was maintaining my altitude, airspeed and attitude. All i could think about was to land the damn plane. I was too scared even to think i was in air.

Well those were some ups and downs, She and I Shared. How i wish i could finish my course with her. Parting is must in this world for everything, but i had not thought we would part this way. You might consider me selfish because I had always imagined that I would be the one leaving her, Leaving with my head held high while she like always binded on the parking ramp, smiling for me and my victory.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi ash

awww... i love the suspense.. u were closed to an accident too... flying is a great experience, u jst experienced how to be totally free...

-=-
i love the words...

i felt the emotion...

and i guess, SHE's still your pen...

Anonymous said...

nice one subash never ever thought u could write like that! amazing.. gypsy pilot!