Calgary, May 2022
I always liked fairy tales. Kings, princesses, the evil witches steering things up, the heroes who saved princesses, I liked it all. But most of all I liked the dragons. They could fly wherever they wanted, and I wished to fly with them. We would skip eating princesses, perhaps even save one, but I wanted to have a friendly dragon. We will save a princess together.
One day, much later in life, my wish came true, and I did get a dragon. It wasn’t really a dragon, it was an airplane, but it behaved like a dragon. On my first flight it jumped up from the runway and tried to bite me. Only by a gentle coaxing the dragon reluctantly calmed down. Other flights followed and slowly we became friends. We did all kinds of gyrations, turning the world around us but, to follow the fairy tale, I still needed to save a princess. My chance came when I was practicing for the local aerobatic competition and overheard a panicky female voice on the radio:
“Tower, this is Cessna 172 G-XXX. This is my first solo cross-country flight, and I am lost.”
In the old days this could be a problem, but nowadays even small planes have what is called transponder, enabling air traffic control to identify position of each aircraft.
“Press ident,” said the man in the control tower, and then he continued: “You are identified at …., fly heading ….” The location where I was practicing was close to her position, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to see what the princess was doing. In just few minutes I saw a little Cessna in the distance, flying the wrong heading. “Tower, this is … (and I identified myself). I have the aircraft in distress in sight, I will guide her to the airport.”
“Roger,” was the reply. This is how air traffic controllers speak. Then I started to talk to my princess. “Cessna G-XXX, I am at your 2 o’clock position, about one mile. Do you have me in sight?” There was nothing for a while and then a female voice said. “Yes, I see you.”
“Good. I will slow down so you can catch up with me. Fly on my right-wing position so I can see you.”
My princess did just that, we flew in formation for about ten minutes and when I saw the airport, I asked her. “Do you have the airport in sight?”
“Yes, I do, thank you very much.”
I thought this was the end of saving a princess, but I was wrong. At home there was a message on my answering machine to call a number I didn’t recognise. When I called, a female voice which I already knew answered.
“Hello,” I replied. “You must be the princess I saved from being lost. Air traffic control gave me your number.”
“Yes, my prince, you saved me, and I want to thank you very much, but I want to do more than that. I want to invite you for a nice dinner so I can see my prince in less dramatic circumstance.”
“Well, prince can never refuse a wish of a princess, so I accept gladly.”
We met in a restaurant, and I saw my princess in person. Her name was Diana, was about my age and we had a pleasant evening together. As expected, flying was the main topic of the conversation, and when we were about to leave, she said:
“You know, in fairy tales the princess always has three wishes the prince must fulfil. I already used one, asking you to go for dinner, so now I would like to use my second wish: I want you to fly with me.”
“Deer princess, I would love to,” I replied, “but it wouldn’t be that easy. As a student pilot, you cannot take me for a ride and if we fly together, I will have to be the pilot. You couldn’t put that flight in your logbook.”
“I know,” she said. “You will be the pilot, but I will do all the flying. You will be just the prince who can rescue me if I get lost again.”
I wasn’t keen on the idea. It meant wasting most of the day while I could do my own flying, but prince must obey his princess.
“All right, you arrange the renting of the plane, and I will come.
We did the flight, and she didn’t get lost. It was boring for me, but we had another nice evening together. Eventually she got her private pilot licence, we did more flying and had more nice evenings. Then she invited me to her house, then to her bed and when my toothbrush ended up in her bathroom, I became worried. She still had a third wish and fairy tales always end up with the princess marrying the prince.
“I still have one more wish, correct?” she asked me one evening when we were in bed.
“Yes, you do,” I replied expecting the worst, but I was wrong again.
“I want you to teach me aerobatics.”
This was something I didn’t expect. She was really serious about flying.
“Dear princess, your requests are becoming difficult. My airplane is a single seater, and we certainly cannot do any aerobatics in the planes you are renting.”
“Aren’t there any aerobatic planes for rent?”
“Not to my knowledge, but there is a group of 12 people sharing an aerobatic airplane. I was part of that group before I got my own plane. If you buy a share, I will teach you.”
I gave Diana the contact to the manager of the group, and she did buy the share. It seemed that money was no object for her. But flying that plane was more difficult than the Cessnas she was renting, so I became her instructor. We flew many hours together and she was doing well. As they say, she was a natural. Later she started accompanying me to competitions and eventually begun to compete herself. We went to many competitions together and we still keep on doing it. By now the younger generation considers us something like founding grandparents of the flying community, but we don’t mind. We enjoy the company.
This is how my fairy tale ends. Like every fairy tale, it should finish by princess marrying her prince, and this one is no exception. Yesterday we celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary.