Have you ever had that sudden insanely strong feeling that you were going to die? That huge instant rush where every single muscle in your body tenses and your adrenaline goes from zero to a million in less than a second as your body physically prepares for death? That has happened to me twice.
The first time was in the panhandle of Florida one hot summer day in the late 1980’s. I was laying on the beach with my girlfriend Lona next to me and a quarter on each eye. For some reason I did not have my shades with me but I did happen to have some quarters so I put one on each eye to help block out the sun rays. We were laying there on a very desolate stretch of beach peacefully listening to the waves gently lapping on the shore. I was thinking about how these damn quarters were getting pretty hot though when suddenly I was sure the world was ending as this impossibly loud noise was instantly upon us, surrounding us, inside of us, part of us...I bolted straight up, quarters flying, opened my eyes and my entire world was filled with helicopter!
There was a huge green army helicopter about 20 feet above us and going at least a 100 mph. My first thought was that it was crashing into us, but in that split second that they were above us I caught a glimpse of the pilot and a passenger looking out the window and they were both laughing! It was just an army copter cruising along the beach and they must have spotted us and decided to buzz us. And just as fast as my world went from calm and peaceful to certain death, they were gone…down the beach and out of sight, probably looking for more people to freak out. It took several minutes for my heartbeat to get back down from 300 to 72 and then I was pissed. Ah well…a good joke I suppose, but I would still like to punch that pilot in the mouth.
The only other time I had that kind of an instant death-rush was a few years later on a clear sunny day when I was flying solo in a two-seat Cessna 152. I was practicing touch-and-goes at a small, non-tower airport east of Madison, WI. A 'touch-and-go' is where you power down, make the landing, and instead of coming to a complete stop you power up again as soon as you are safely on the runway and take off again…then you circle around and do it again. When you are in the flying space of any airport you are required to turn your airplane's radio on to a certain frequency. Every airport has their own frequency, so when you enter an airport’s airspace (which is anywhere from a 5 to 30 mile radius depending on the size of the airport) you turn your plane’s radio to that airport’s frequency. Then with a tower airport they tell you where to go, but with a non-tower airport you have to take it upon yourself to announce your presence and your intentions and movements to anyone in the area on that frequency. At the same time, you are listening to other pilots so you know where everyone is and you can avoid any mid-air collisions.
So on this particular day I am doing touch-and-goes and announcing my position over the radio at every turn. I had just landed, took off, was climbing back up to 2,000 feet and just finishing my left-hand turn into the downwind leg of the next touch-and-go when all of a sudden BLAMMO! To my immediate back-left is another freakin’ airplane coming right at me! (The picture above is about what I was seeing.) It's a low-wing 4-seat Beechcraft and we are just about to hit each other. I am on the left side of my plane, and the passenger on the right side of that plane locked eyes with me for a split second and we both thought we were dead. He was so close I could see the map in his lap, the yellow #2 pencil in his hand, another map on the dashboard, and various items in the plane like a cup of coffee and another pair of headphones. There was nothing but airplane in my vision, and then just as fast as he was there the plane slid right underneath my plane and he was gone…off to my right now and making a beeline out of there.
Again, every single nerve in my entire body had tensed up as I braced for the crash and my heart had leapt up into my mouth while my heartbeat had accelerated to pounding levels. I opened my eyes and suddenly realized I was alive. Relief quickly turned to anger though and as soon as I was able to breathe again and my body had calmed down to a level that allowed my to talk, I got on the radio and started screaming at the guy, “What the f*ck are you doing!!” He had never announced his presence and I never had a clue he was there until he almost hit me. He never responded however so he either did not have his radio on the correct frequency or he was too embarrassed to talk.
It was exciting and quite a rush, but I would still like to punch that pilot in the mouth as an in-air near-miss is something I would never like to repeat again.
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