Flying

Lessons

Debbie Barry

2 Flying Lessons

Published by:

Debbie Barry

2500 Mann Road, #248

Clarkston, Michigan 48346

Copyright © 2013 by Deborah K. Barry. All

rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

by any means without the written permission

of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1490910338

ISBN-10: 1490910336

Flying Lessons 3

Flying Lessons

Debbie walked across the

parking lot toward the large, green

hangar with its corrugated steel walls.

The gravel crunched under her

gleaming, black, leather combat boots.

The morning was cool and crisp, the

sun not far above the horizon in the

pink and yellow sky. Above, the dome

of the sky was a clear, pale blue,

barely streaked with the faintest

wisps of cloud. Debbie smiled at

those clouds, knowing they were too

high in the sky to interfere with her

plans for the day, and noting that

4 Flying Lessons

they were hardly moving in the lazy,

windless heights.

“Good morning, Sir,” Debbie

said as she stepped into the small

office at the end of the hangar. The

office was dimly lit. It was crowded,

with several desks and a cluster of

green and gray filing cabinets in the

corner. Her flight instructor, Matty,

was bent over one of the desks, filling

out a small stack of paperwork.

“Ah, good morning,” Matty

replied, smiling warmly as he looked up

from the desk and gazed at her

through wire-rimmed aviator glasses.

“Ready for some air time today?”

Debbie had spent more time

than she really liked poring over books

Flying Lessons 5

and charts, completing the classroom

portion of her lessons. She was more

than ready to get up in the air.

Debbie was sixteen years old.

She had grown up in a charming, New

England mill town, and she had learned

to work hard for the things she

wanted in life. A pretty girl, she was

no longer overweight, and she had

worked hard for that goal, too.

Bright, moss-green eyes, rimmed with

golden-brown, sparkled below a fringe

of thick, dark brown bangs. While

most of Debbie’s friends in the

eleventh grade were learning to drive

cars, and were preparing to get their

driver’s licenses, Debbie was spending

her weekends learning to fly airplanes.

6 Flying Lessons

She hoped that she would be able to

follow the course all the way to

earning her pilot’s license, but she was

not too worried about that just yet.

As long as she could fly, she was

happy.

“Yes, Sir!” Debbie replied,

grinning. “I’m ready to fly!”

Matty gathered up his

paperwork. “Let’s go file a flight plan,

then,” he said, pulling on his cap.

Debbie and Matty walked

across the airport to the main

terminal to file their flight plan.

Matty was an older man, retired from

military service. He worked for the

school system now, and he had met

Debbie through the school. His

Flying Lessons 7

official duties in the school system

did not involve teaching, but outside

the public school system, Matty was a

certified flight instructor. He was

not an active part of the flight school

at the local airport, and he had

retired from teaching paying students

to fly, but it pleased him to keep his

instructor qualifications current. To

do that, he had to log a certain

number of instructional hours. To do

this, he needed a student, and that

had led him to suggest to Debbie that

she should learn to fly.

Flying a small aircraft is an

expensive proposition, and Matty

knew that Debbie’s family could not

afford such a frivolous expense. Her

8 Flying Lessons

mom was raising Debbie and her sister

on her own, with help from the girls’

grandmother. Matty saw a lot of

potential in Debbie, and he knew that

she was a hard worker. He knew that

she was always on the school honor

roll, but he also saw that her clothes,

while neat and clean, were not new.

Since teaching Debbie to fly

benefitted both the student and the

teacher, Matty paid for the weekly

use of the single-engine, high-wing

Cessna airplane in which she was

learning to fly. He paid for the

expensive aviation fuel, as well, so

that Debbie did not have to pay for

her flying lessons at all.

Flying Lessons 9

Debbie and Matty filed their

flight plan inside the airport terminal.

Matty had Debbie call it in to the

flight controller, since there was no

one manning the terminal, to give her

practice filing the flight plans that

were always required for pilots to fly.

Soon, Debbie was busily going

through a detailed, pre-flight

checklist. Each detail of the plane

and its instruments had to be checked

before she could fly. She looked the

plane over as she and Matty

approached it across the paved tie-

down area, and she noted with

satisfaction that the wings, tail,

wheels, propeller, and other parts of

the plane were undamaged and ready

10 Flying Lessons

to go. Knowing that Matty was

watching to see how well she

remembered her lessons, she checked

the documents that were required in

the plane and made a mark with a

pencil in front of each item on her

checklist. She climbed up on the

plane’s wing struts to check the fuel

tanks that were located inside the

wings. There were many details to

check, and she could not skip over any

one of them, but the checklist was

soon completed and Debbie was able

to untie the Cessna from the tie-

downs in the tarmac.

Debbie climbed into the left

seat of the Cessna, since she would be

the pilot during her lesson. Learning

Flying Lessons 11

to fly from the right seat would not

give her the necessary familiarity

with the location of the many controls

that she would need to use to fly

safely. In past lessons, Matty had

talked Debbie through the steps

needed to start the airplane, but this

time he sat quietly in the right seat

and watched as she carefully worked

her way through the process on her

own. Before long, the Cessna was

taxiing onto the runway with Debbie

at the controls.

As always, the flight itself was

a wondrous experience for Debbie.

She had flown with Matty almost

every weekend for several months,

and she never tired of the feeling of

12 Flying Lessons

flying in the open air. Today, Debbie

followed Matty’s instructions as she

practiced ascending and descending

through the air. She practiced

turning to the right and to the left.

She practiced using landmarks on the

ground to tell her where she was and

where she needed to go. The land and

buildings always looked very different

from the air than they looked from

the ground, but Debbie had learned to

recognize familiar landmarks as they

appeared from the air. She paid

attention to her compass and was

careful to keep the Cessna at a safe

altitude. Living among the mountains,

Debbie was careful not to fly too

close to the forested slopes.

Flying Lessons 13

Finally, it was time to return to

the airport. Landing at her home

airport was tricky, but Debbie was

learning to master the trick of it. A

tall obelisk stood over the town,

marking the site of an important,

historic battle, and the obelisk was

almost directly in line with the usual

approach to the runway on which

Debbie needed to land. She lined up

the point of the obelisk with the line

of the runway extending beyond it,

and then she kept that alignment in

her view as she made her approach.

Lining up the landmarks was not the

tricky part, though. As soon as the

small airplane flew over the top of the

obelisk, Debbie pushed on the

14 Flying Lessons

steering yoke and quickly adjusted

the throttle to quickly drop behind

the obelisk toward the runway. If

she dropped too fast, she could crash

the plane, but if she did not drop fast

enough, she would overshoot and miss

the runway, forcing her to fly up and

around to try again.

Debbie swallowed hard as the

Cessna dropped toward the runway.

She was nervous about landing, but

the plane was responding perfectly

and she had everything under control.

Her concentration was shaken slightly

when she noticed her mother’s car

parked in front of the flight school,

but she recovered almost instantly,

focusing on the task of landing the

Flying Lessons 15

plane safely and stopping before the

far end of the runway. She knew that

there was a house at the end of the

runway, ad she always worried about

missing the end of the runway and

crashing into that house. All went

well, though, and Debbie landed the

plane without a single bump or bounce.

As she slowed the plane and

turned it to taxi back to the tie-down

spot, Debbie noticed that Matty’s

arms were crossed over his chest, his

hands nowhere near the controls on

his side of the plane. He grinned at

her.

“Well done!” Matty praised her.

“I did that on my own?” Debbie

choked out, thoroughly surprised.

16 Flying Lessons

“You weren’t holding the yoke?”

Debbie felt a heady mix of pride and

terror at the thought that she had

successfully landed without even the

safety net of her instructor’s hands

on the yoke in case of an emergency.

Debbie taxied the Cessna to its

proper space and powered down the

single engine. As she went through

the checklist for securing the plane,

she saw her mother and father

standing next to the car, her young

sister not far from them. Debbie

concentrated on making her knots

secure and tending to her tasks.

When the plane was secure,

Matty walked with Debbie to meet

her family.

Flying Lessons 17

“That was a nice landing,” Mom

said to Matty as they shook hands.

Matty smiled and shrugged,

then gestured toward Debbie with his

chin. “I can’t take the credit,” he

said, “It was all her work.”

Mom and Dad stared at Debbie

and Mom’s face paled. “You landed?”

she asked her daughter.

Debbie smiled and nodded, still

glowing with the pride of her

accomplishment.

“Wait a minute,” Dad said, a

note of warning in his voice. “Are you

saying you let a teenager land a plane

by herself?”

Matty was taken aback, and

confusion registered on his face.

18 Flying Lessons

“Yes, she did a great job. I couldn’t

have landed it better myself,” he

replied.

Debbie grinned happily,

deciding to ignore the incredulity on

her parents’ faces. She climbed into

the back seat of the car, already

daydreaming about the next time she

would be able to fly.

Debbie did fly many times

after that proud day, and Matty let

her land many times. One thing and

another happened in her life, though,

and she did not actually complete her

training and earn her pilot’s license.

While she regretted the interruptions

of life, Debbie continued to love the

air.

Flying Lessons 19

Several years after Debbie

graduated from high school, she

found herself involved in a search for

a small plane that had disappeared

near the Canadian border. The search

went on for many days, and Debbie

did everything she could to support

the efforts. Finally, the day came

when she was told to go home and get

a few days’ rest. Rest sounded like a

good thing, but Debbie had a small

problem. Home was some hundred

miles away, and Debbie did not have a

car. She started asking around o see

whether anyone else was headed in

the direction of her home.

Debbie stepped out of the

building where the search was being

20 Flying Lessons

coordinated. She was startled when

she found herself face-to-face with

her old flight instructor, Matty.

“Hi!” he greeted her, placing a

hand on her elbow to keep her from

stumbling.

“Matty! Hi!” she replied.

Remembering where they were, she

steadied herself and tried again.

“Good afternoon, Sir.”

Matty smiled. “Where are you

off to?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a ride home,”

she replied.

Matty knew that Debbie had

married and moved to the other side

of the state since she had last taken

lessons with him. “Well,” he said, “I

Flying Lessons 21

can’t give you a ride in a car, but I can

fly you down if Al can meet you at the

airport.” Al was Debbie’s husband.

The couple lived near an airport, and

they often flew out of that airport

with friends who kept planes there.

“Are you sure?” Debbie asked

excitedly.

“Sure,” he grinned. “Just let

me file a flight plan.”

“Thank you, Sir!” Debbie

exclaimed. “I’ll get my gear.”

Before long, Debbie found

herself stowing her hiking gear in the

small cargo compartment of the same

Cessna in which she had once taken

flying lessons. Being just a passenger

for this flight, Debbie climbed into

22 Flying Lessons

the right seat and carefully fastened

the five-point harness that would

keep her securely in her seat. Matty

completed his checklist, and Debbie

put on her radio headset as he settled

into the left seat.

The beginning of the flight was

pleasant and uneventful. Debbie was

tired from the past week’s efforts,

and she sensed that Matty was tired,

too. Using the radio, Debbie arranged

to have a message relayed to Al by

telephone to have his meet her at the

airport.

As the little Cessna approached

the airport near Debbie’s home, a wall

of storm clouds rose up in front of

the plane. Matty looked at the clouds

Flying Lessons 23

worriedly, and then started pulling

maps and charts out of a leather case

that he wore strapped to his lower

leg. Debbie grabbed the control yoke

and kept the plane flying steadily.

“We need a way around that

storm,” Matty muttered, studying the

maps and occasionally glancing up at

the threateningly dark clouds. “Just

keep her steady ‘til I see where we

can go,” he said to Debbie.

Debbie flew on, glancing from

time to time at Matty and his maps.

Suddenly, Debbie recognized a

familiar mountain. It was the main

landmark for landing at the airport

closest to her home, where Al would

be meeting her.

24 Flying Lessons

“Sir,” she began, “I know where

we are. I know where to land.”

“I’ll find a way around the

storm,” Matty replied distractedly.

“Just keep flying until I do.”

Debbie gazed longingly at the

familiar mountain peak. The storm

clouds seemed thinner beyond the

mountain, too, and she could just see

the runway beyond the mountain.

Taking a steadying breath, Debbie

made a decision. Matty was clearly

too distracted with the maps to

realize that they had a clear shot to

lad at their original destination. He

still thought they needed to fly

around the storm. Debbie could see

the landing approach, and she realized

Flying Lessons 25

that she needed to do something

quickly or they would fly past the

approach for the airport. Recalling

her flying lessons, Debbie adjusted

the controls and began the descent to

the airport. Even when Debbie

radioed a message to local air traffic

about her approach, Matty did not

look up.

The plane landed with a slight

bump as a cross wind caught the

Cessna at the last moment, but

Debbie had no trouble maintaining

control. As she taxied to the tie-

down closest to the parking lot, she

saw Al and several of their friends on

the grass near the terminal.

26 Flying Lessons

Matty looked up and seemed to

return to the world as Debbie

powered down the engine.

“You landed?” he asked in

surprise.

“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, but you

were busy with the maps and I don’t

think you understood when I said I

could see the approach,” she replied.

“Well, I’ll be!” he exclaimed.

“Well done!”

Debbie smiled with pleasure,

relieved that Matty felt she had done

the right thing.

In a matter of moments, Al and

their friends were at the airplane. Al

reached up to help Debbie down over

the wing strut, and then folded her

Flying Lessons 27

into a hug. In no time, her gear was

retrieved from the cargo

compartment and piled into the back

of the couple’s dark blue station

wagon.

“Thank you for the ride home,

Sir,” Debbie said to Matty, offering

to shake his hand.

“You brought us home,” he

replied, accepting her handshake and

using it to pull her into an

unaccustomed bear hug. “You did a

great job up there.”

28 Flying Lessons

Flying Lessons 29

About the Author

Debbie Barry and her husband

live in southeastern Michigan with

their two sons and their two cats. The

family enjoys exploring history

through French and Indian War

reenactment and through medieval

30 Flying Lessons

reenactment in the Society for

Creative Anachronism (SCA). Debbie

grew up in Vermont, where she heard

and collected many family stories that

she enjoys retelling as historical

fiction for young audiences.

Debbie graduated summa cum

laude with a B.A. in dual majors of

social sciences with an education

concentration and of English in 2013.

Flying Lessons 31

Also look for these titles by

Debbie Barry:

Books for Young

Learners:

Around the Color Wheel

Colors and Numbers

Stories for Children:

A Shattering Experience

A Visit to the Detroit Zoo

Bobcat in the Pantry

Born in the Blizzard and

Freshet

Expressing the Trunk

Gramp’s Bear Story

Meeting with Wolves

32 Flying Lessons

Playing with the Parachute

The Berry Post

When Mary Fell Down the Well

Writing Competition

Biographical Fiction:

The Wrong Race

Wood Alcohol in Carmel

History and Genealogy:

Family History of Deborah K.

Fletcher

Grandma Fletcher’s Scrapbooks

Nana’s Stories

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families

Flying Lessons 33

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families, 2nd Edition

with Digital Scans

The Red Notebook

The Red Notebook, 2nd Edition

with Digital Scans

Zoa Fletcher’s Photos

Zoa Has Her Way

Debbie’s Art:

Debbie’s Vision in Art, Volumes

1-4

Debbie’s Vision in Art (Hard

cover, published by Blurb)

The Heart’s Vision

The Heart’s Vision in Color

34 Flying Lessons

Other Topics:

A Journey Through My College

Papers: Undergraduate Series

Advantages of Brain-Based

Learning Environments

African Americans in Post-Civil

War America

American Students Are

Crippled By Cultural Diversity

Education

Analyzing The Yellow Wallpaper

A Personal Philosophy of

Education

Debbie’s Writing

Examining Gender in A Doll

House

Identity Within and Without

Indifferent Universe

Flying Lessons 35

Loss

More Than Just Monogamy

Nature in Early American

Literature

Picturing The First Writing

Religion and Myth in English

Poetry

Responsibility to a Broader

Humanity

Speech Codes in Education

Symbolic Serpents

The Evil of Grendel