One day in the mid-1970s, I was hanging out at the airport, spending time with some of the guys. The winds were howling, around 25 to 30 miles an hour, and nobody was interested in flying, especially not for training. As we sat there watching the winds whip across the tarmac, a story popped into my head. It was something my first flight instructor used to fantasize about back in 1962, when I was learning to fly at Western Michigan University.
His fantasy was to take off, climb to about 100-200 feet, reduce power, and let the wind blow him back down the runway. The idea was that, with the right wind, he could adjust the throttle and land exactly where he’d taken off—without making a single turn. He had mentioned this fantasy many times to different students on separate occasions, usually on particularly windy days. It was more of a whimsical notion, something playful and lighthearted, yet entirely possible if the conditions were right.
Over the years, I always figured it was just one of those things that a pilot might say in jest, but it stuck with me, especially on windy days like this, when nobody else wanted to fly.
As my mind began to wander, I started thinking about this little airport back in Plymouth, Michigan. It was a simple place—a single grass landing strip, no more than 10 or 15 small planes parked at the end of the runway. No tower, just a windsock and the good ol’ wind triangle. It was one of those spots you could blink and miss if you were not paying attention.
But one day, years later, I was coming home from college, something caught my eye. There were planes everywhere, easily 50 or 60 of them, and a freshly paved runway! It had grown into something much larger than it was when I first saw it.
That got me thinking about how much time can change things, like a little grass airstrip becoming a bustling spot for planes. It made me wonder, if a place like that can change so much, why not try something as crazy as stopping a plane in mid-air?
Now, thinking about that small airport had me jumping back to another memory, a tiny runway on the other side of an irrigation canal in Florida, where my family used to live out in the country. It was off Military Trail in West Palm Beach County.
There was this crop duster with a small plane who would take off now and then. Every time he went up, he’d just barely clear the power lines at the end of the runway. It looked like he was cutting it too close, but he always cleared the lines (Sometimes not by very much).
Every time I saw him, I would think, “Flying can’t be that hard if he’s making it look so easy.” Still, I just enjoyed watching him take off and come back like clockwork. It made me think about how simple flying seemed back then.
And that thought carried me even further back in time when things were even simpler.
Several years before I was watching that crop duster over Military Trail, I was a Boy Scout, camping at the east end of Lantana Airport’s single, east-west runway. Back then, it was just a small airport with one paved runway and landing lights running along its length. Our camp was about a quarter mile northeast of the east end of the runway, on the west shore of Lake Osborne. Although the camp is long gone, the Airport is still there.
My first real encounter with that place had nothing to do with flying—it was all about the “manly sport” of snipe hunting. One night, several seasoned scouts took some new scouts snipe
hunting. We hid behind bushes at the end of the runway, bags and flashlights in hand, calling out, “Here, Snipe! Here, Snipe!” I didn’t catch a single snipe, and no planes came in either. But it’s one of those childhood memories that remain with you, as funny and pointless as it seems now.
Looking back, I realize my association with airplanes goes way back, even to moments like that. It is as if airplanes have always been hovering on the edges of my life—like that windy day when I decided to stop one in mid-air.
After all that reminiscing, I thought, “Why not go flying?” I checked out the lightest plane we had—a Cessna 150. Now, flying a Cessna 150 is a bit like flying a kite. Its stall speed is about thirty-five miles an hour, making it the perfect plane for a little goofing off in high winds.
I received clearance from the tower, and headed out to the general practice area used for flight instruction. Of course, the skies were empty, nobody else was out in that wind. I flew around for a bit until I spotted a farmer down below, plowing his field, with an intersection nearby. It seemed like the perfect place to see if I could hover the plane, hold it steady in one spot.
I came into the wind and slowed the plane down, but it wasn’t as easy as it might sound. The wind was shifting direction constantly, sometimes veering by 5 to 10 degrees and gusting unpredictably. It took a steady hand and near constant adjustments to keep the plane steady—minor tweaks to the yoke, quick taps on the rudder. I couldn’t relax for a second, with every gust threatening to throw me off balance. But after a few minutes of focused effort, I managed to hold the plane almost in place, hovering directly into the wind.
Now, I couldn’t see the farmer’s face, but I’m sure he must have been looking up, wondering what kind of pilot would just be hanging out over his field without moving. For about ten minutes, I floated there, occasionally adjusting for a gust of wind but mostly just… suspended in place.
When I was ready, I brought the plane out of its hover, gradually picked up speed, and flew back to the airport.
As I headed home, I could’t help but wonder if my first flight Instructor at Western Michigan ever managed to pull off the fantasy he used to talk about.