By Carl La Rue
Every once in a while, we encounter a situation where something we did previously comes home to roost. It usually has the potential to be embarrassing. Such was the case when I visited the Cambridge airport last Monday.
Sitting on the ramp with an open door was a beautiful Citation Jet 500. As I arrived the passengers were just leaving the terminal, obviously on the verge of departing. None of them were familiar to me but I tagged along, hoping for a few words with the pilot as we are generally kindred spirits.
Imagine my surprise as one of them eyeballed me and asked "are you the writer?" Cover blown, I admitted that I was Carl La Rue, and he identified himself as Craig McGonigle, whom I had talked to on the phone but hadn't met.
That brought another person up to me who offered to shake hands. "I'm Shawn Mack, the pilot, and we just spoke a couple of days ago"
(I had called him, among others, in the process of doing a "hangar needs" survey.)
Names and aircraft identification tumbled rapidly into -- gasp -- recognition! This was the airplane that I had colorfully written about where the owner had fallen ignominiously on his posterior, slipping on the mess created when the pilot had been forced to deice the airplane before takeoff with antifreeze and a hose.
Shawn anticipated my question just as I began to ask: "This is David Dachner, the president of Amarado Oil Company." Just that suddenly I was face to face, and shaking hands with, the gentleman whose unfortunate fall I had described unflatteringly, albeit in critique of our airport's shortcomings.
I stammered an apology for his unfortunate encounter with our pavement and he couldn't have been more gracious about it. In answer to my question about future visits to KCDI, he replied that there would be "many more in the future." I allowed that there might be a heated hangar for them to use in the future and he simply said "good" while the pilot nodded his head vigorously.
Before entering the plane, Mr. Dachner asked for a copy of the article that I had previously written (oh, oh!) and handed me his card. "One side is my profession," he said, "and the other side is my passion." Of course, I turned to the passion side immediately: www.abundantlifefoundaton.net. Anyone who enjoyed my unceremonious description of his pratfall owes it to him now to access his website.
The pilot had our ramp rat, Dave Mourer, do something that I had never seen before. Standing behind the Number 1 engine for a couple of minutes before engine start, Dave held a floor mat up against the tailpipe, blocking the tail wind from blowing into the engine. When the pilot gave him the word, he removed it and the pilot immediately began the starting sequence on that engine.
Why? It seems like a tail wind acting on the turbine vanes gets the engine turning in the wrong direction and that's not a good time to engage the starter. I'll ask Shawn about that later, when we fly together in my Lancair. I offered the ride by saying "at least we can go upside down in my plane."
"That would be nice," he said, "I'm not a stranger to upside down. I used to fly F-15s and F-16s."
Gulp.
Guess I'm in for another adventure.
carl.larue@live.com
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