An Iridescent Sky 1

       Falling. Weightless. A steep dive and gut-tingling speed. Pulling up and sudden G’s pressing every pound of flesh hard into his seat cushions. Then sudden release of gravity catapults Michael’s sailplane into an exhilarating ascent through a hazy, blue sky. The giddy feel of weightlessness crept in as speed became stall and flying became falling. Wing over wing, the nose tipped toward earth, and stillness dissolved with the roar of sudden speed.

Michael pulled back on the stick between his knees and his sailplane leveled off and glided three thousand feet above the scrub oak and pine trees of the Santa Inez Valley. Thoughts flowed with the currents of air whispering at the vents of his Nimbus sailplane, “God, I love this… this feel of the invisible, climbing this spiral staircase of wind. So good!”

By now David, a retired Marine who ran the glider port, had landed the tow plane. Marie was driving back to their small town home in Julian, California. Michael banked his sailplane toward a flock of birds ascending on an updraft. Such an amazing day! Unseasonably warm for October. Secured in ascending currents, he watched clouds forming in the upper elevations of an otherwise deep blue sky.

Michael finger-tapped a rhythm in cadence with the variometer’s beeping which increased ahead of his drumming.

“Amazing rate of climb! Especially for this time of year. Climate change has its advantages… Yeah right! ”

The comfort of flying turned his thoughts to Marie, and how she would love this part, the easy hush of wind at the vents, the elegant soaring. He smiled to himself. The acrobatics? Not so much! Still, he wished she were in the seat behind him messing with his hair with her bare feet. On this flight, Michael needed to feel the edges of how his plane worked.

8,000 feet registered on the altimeter and still a healthy rate of ascent lifted his plane toward the forming clouds above.  Michael banked 30 degrees to his left. A cloud a couple miles off his lower right erupted into rapidly ascending column. His brow furled.

“That’s a little weird,” he said to no one in particular. With hundreds of hours of flight time, he hadn’t seen that phenomena before. Michael kept it visible and watched as lightening flashed through the dirty cotton interior.

“Ok… think I’ve seen enough,” he said and looked around the surrounding blue for similar conditions. Lightning storms didn’t just erupt like this, but there it was and that meant getting to ground. Ground strikes meant wildfire, and wildfire meant possible evacuation and keeping Marie and Jenny safe.

The mountains around Julian were bone dry again this year, another burn ban in effect, another once-in-a-hundred year wildfire condition.

“Time to get home… and I’m at 12,000 feet.  Really? That was quick… a little too quick. Strange. Let’s get this done with some fun! Inverted dive? Hell yeah!”

But the plane didn’t dive, just rolled on its back and shook like a wounded moth. Michael struggled to complete the barrel roll and finally managed it. His cockpit suddenly went dark as cloud seemed to swallow the light.

“Man! Something out there’s got me.”

His eyes suddenly focused on a light in the instrument array.  

“Wait, wait, wait… The O2 light? I can’t be that high! That has to be a malfunction. Let’s see… altimeter says… 19,858 feet! No way in hell!  Not this fast! No! Not ever! What the hell is happening?”

The nose of the plane tipped downward, but a shudder ran through the airframe as the wings fluttered ominously. Michael checked air speed. 20 knots, a stall. Still, his sailplane kept ascending. Michael fought for airspeed and an exit from the updraft. Cloud grudgingly gave way to a layer of clarity, a middle zone of clear sky sandwiched between planes of cloud. Miles ahead, Michael caught a glimpse of crystalline blue.

“Ok… got some stable air. And I’m at 28,000 feet. Freaking weird! I need the radio.”

“Hey, Warner Springs, this is Michael Hayden. Do you copy?”

Static.

“Let’s see…I’ve got 122.8 and that’s still UNICOM.”

“Hey David. You got your ears on? I’ve got trouble.”

Static, blips of transmission.

“Not good. Not good. This is getting weirder by the second. Wish I’d put more water in the ballast tanks. Ok baby, let’s get this done. Stick forward and let’s not make a crater. And back into the clouds. S’Ok. We’re dropping”

The roar of wind vibrated through his craft.

Nice! Thank God! Now, to find a way out of these clouds.”

Michael watched the altimeter numbers register accelerating descent as his body bounced and rattled through bumps and drops. The stick ever forward, his Nimbus nearing VNE at 180 mph, and with wind screaming at the vents, the cotton shroud of darkness evaporated into sudden daylight. A looming mountainside covered in trees sent waves of adrenaline and fear spiking through his body.

“What is… What the hell!

Pulling up hard, the long wings of his sailplane flexed toward failure, a shuddering pop made Michael grimace as 7 G’s threatened blackout. The tops of massive trees slid under the fuselage and quick acrobatic flying avoided a column of stone at the end of a rocky ridge-line. 

As the effects of near blackout cleared from his vision, the panorama below made all thought stop. As his sailplane flew a tenuous descent away from the wooded mountainside, a country of green rolling hills emerged from the haze below. The crystal clear air showed he was on a bearing toward a large river maybe 30 miles distant. What looked to be cultivated land at the edge of sight beyond the river that marked the end of many miles of grassland. Michael became increasingly disoriented. A thought forced its way into consciousness, “This is not where I was. This isn’t Southern California. It’s like southern Washington, but that’s crazy! Whatever! I need altitude.”

Michael made to turn back toward the mountains for uplift, but the stick seemed stuck then ratcheted to the new position and the sailplane banked sharply and circled lower toward the rugged wild lands now directly below.  He forced the stick hard right and back. The nose rose and airspeed slowed to a stall. Jamming the stick forward, something snapped in the flight control mechanism and the plane dropped into a sudden steep dive. With the sudden speed the bubble canopy seemed to bulge outward, rippled and tore with the decompression of the canopy pressures. He resisted this sudden break with reality, but a radically different reality imposed itself. The plastic grip on the control stick squished in his grip, an icy wind seemed to slap him awake. The deceptively soft green carpet of trees rapidly gained definition. Instinctively, Michael pulled back on the stick. It snapped and locked. Eyes blurred against the blast of cold air. Blinding light erupted all around him.

“Shit! Not like this. Not like this!”