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Moving is a time of travail and of finding out how much junk you own that you haven’t used in years or even decades. For me, one of those things was a bag that included an old E6-B, a pocket hiking compass (for ferrying old cropdusters with broken compasses), a “den-alt” whiz-wheel bought as a student pilot right after I read something about the horrors of density altitude—and logbooks.

There is a currently-popular country song wherein the young boy who ran off with the daughter of a pistol-toting mean man sings, “I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?” Looking through those old logs put me to wondering the same thing–what was I thinking? 

Once, as a very low-time pilot, I got lost “just a bit.” I finally found an airport, but when the lineman topped it off he announced to me and a lobby full of people—”Man, you landed with less than a half gallon of fuel in that airplane.” What was I thinking?

As a VFR-only pilot I flew out over the Gulf of Mexico to get around a storm on the coast. Next thing I knew it was raining and I couldn’t see land at all. When I found land it was covered by the storm. I survived but landed almost in tears. What was I thinking?

I once flew two passengers to an airshow in the first new T-Tail Lance in Alabama. After the show I was gonna put on a show. I left the flaps off on the takeoff roll, planning to pull on flaps at the same time I rotated. That was a dang fool bit of hot doggery if there ever was one.

At rotation speed I honked back on the wheel and reached for the flaps but—for some reason that I will never figure out if I live to be a 100—I put up the gear instead of lowering the flaps! Time moved in slow motion as I struggled to keep that airplane flying. The stall warning blared, trees approached, and the thing finally, reluctantly, flew. The innocent passengers thought it was a great takeoff. What in the world was I thinking?

They say God takes care of fools and drunks. That applies to young, low-time pilots, too, and I’ve proved it.

What was I thinking?

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