Fun Flight? you Bet!

Prior to September 11, flying in the Washington, D.C. area was a lot different. Getting a waiver to security regulations was as simple as a well-placed phone call. This is a story about one such flight – an aviation first – that will never be repeated.

“We don’t fly north of our airfield. That’s where the Andrews Air Force Base controlled airspace begins.” I told this to thousands of flight students from 1984 thru 1998 when I worked as a full time ultralight flight instructor in Fort Washington, Maryland. Thoughts of flying into such secure airspace – home of the president’s Air Force One and some pretty lethal “fighter” aircraft – conjured up visions of being shot down in flames for veering a few feet into Andrews’ airspace. In the Nation’s Capital, you do not think about even vaguely resembling a terrorist. A sense of humor is not a job requirement for those employed by the FAA, FBI, Secret Service, etc. When it comes to work, they are all business. Period. And that was seven years ago when terrorists were only a theoretical possibility.

My friend Jerry Carlson and I were just minutes away from doing the impossible and forbidden: flying an ultralight aircraft into Andrews Air Force. We envisioned the display at the annual Open House - which attracts up to a million visitors – as an exciting opportunity to spread the word about open-cockpit flight.

We discussed communication procedures in the event they could not hear us over the engine and wind noise of our open-cockpit craft, or if radio contact was lost. All of the contingencies seemed to be covered.

Jerry sat in the front seat furthest from the engine and its noise, to handle radio communication. I sat in the back seat and flew the aircraft. A take off in an ultralight airplane is a 100-foot hop, skip and before you know it, you are airborne, angled back precariously - staring straight at the heavens. As we climbed to 500 feet, Andrews was in sight. This is not to say that our vision rivals that of an eagle, it’s just hard to miss an airfield that seemingly occupies half the state of Maryland. At 1,000 feet we leveled off, throttled back and contacted Andrews’ approach control.



Jerry: “Yellow ultralight”



Tower: “Yellow ultralight, say your heading and position.”



Jerry: “Andrews, Yellow ultralight 060 entering airspace over Route 301.”



Tower: “Yellow ultralight, approach downwind west of tower, then turn downwind.”

At this point, the controller must have thought that we were flying a lot faster than say, 50 mile per hour. In an F-16 it takes just a few seconds to go around the traffic pattern at this monstrous airfield. In an ultralight aircraft, one must allow at least a half hour.

After a few minutes, we were now to the west of where our base leg would be.



Jerry: “Andrews Tower, Yellow ultralight requests authorization to turn base.”



Tower: “Yellow ultralight, turn base runway one left.”

My eyes caught sight of several F-16 aircraft on the runway about to take off, and to our amazement, Air Force One taxiing behind! “What a photo that will be!” I exclaimed, only to realize that I had forgotten my camera. To my surprise, Jerry unveiled a camera from underneath his jacket and began clicking away. As we enjoyed this aerial view of the dozens of military aircraft on the flight line, I pointed out anything of interest.

Inching along, we neared our 90-degree left turn for final approach. I was somewhat perplexed, however, as two F-16s had just departed, and two more were waiting at the end of runway one left behind Air Force One. As I became convinced that we would spend eternity circling waiting for clearance to turn to our final approach, the traffic controller’s voice came over the radio.

Tower: “Yellow ultralight, would you land runway one right? Please be advised that the last 2,500 are not useable. The runway length is 10,000 feet. Will this present a problem?”

Since ultralight aircraft take about three hundred feet to land, Jerry and I agreed that with an incredible sense of the elements and superior airmanship, we could avoid overshooting the limited runway.

Jerry: “Ultralight turning final. One right.”

We held cruise power to fly the ultralight over one-half mile to the taxiway turn off. Meandering through the grass, I imagined the Tower Manager looking at us through binoculars, observing our scenic route to the display area. “Can’t those stupid ultralight pilots keep on the centerline of the taxiway?” she must be wondering. Nonetheless, the tower got us across runway one left – where seconds ago an F-16 thundered by at a few hundred miles per hour before rocketing straight up and out of sight. I can only imagine she let out a huge sigh of relief as she turned us over to ground control.

After two days of sharing flying stories with the new friends we had made, it was time to go home. The Ground Control personnel advised us on the radio to trail behind the FOLLOW ME truck. It soon became obvious that this driver leads aircraft that travel a lot faster. Racing toward the runway at about 50 miles per hour, we were fighting to stay on the ground. At the runway, the truck peeled off abruptly 180 degrees to the left, as we comically banked in our right turn onto the runway.

A green light from the tower gave us the all clear. Checking high and low in both directions revealed no other aircraft. Good to go!

Departing the field we saluted the accommodating tower personnel and the audience with a rock of the wings, and we were on our way.