Flying Over Trumpland in a Small Airplane
There isn’t anything quite like seeing America from a small plane. This past week I travelled from my home in San Francisco to visit my nephews in college (University of Pittsburgh and Purdue University). I flew my friend John’s Cessna from just south of Cleveland, across central Ohio and Indiana to Purdue University in Western Indiana. He’s a retired Navy F14 Tomcat aviator and Commander from Ohio, and graciously offered to take me in his plane allowing me to navigate, fly, and land the plane, even though it’s been 18 years since I last had the opportunity to use my pilot’s license.
First there is the whole subculture of private pilots, small airports, and old-school navigation (I wasn’t relying on the GPS, that would be too easy). Flying small planes is a staple of the Midwest culture. Nobody in my New Jersey high school class of 500 students was a pilot, whereas John got his license in high school along with several of his other classmates. That was the thing to do for a high school student in Central Ohio. And joining the armed forces was a common goal for these same students. None of this was the case in my New York City metropolitan area upbringing. When I met John at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, I had never previously met somebody from the Midwest. John and his family were so refreshing compared with the “Upperish” Middle-class neighborhood of Livingston New Jersey, where the competition to show off your fancy clothes and expensive cars was the driving force behind relationships and attitudes. My fondest memories of University were those days when John, I, and a few other friends would take a few days off from University to visit with his family, enjoying the warm Midwest hospitality, which included popping into dinner with his extended family who lived nearby, shooting a shotgun or 44 magnum revolver in their backyard with a few of the cousins, listening to John’s father’s stories about his time after he enlisted in the Korean War (I had never met anybody who’s dad fought in a war), and hearing funny stories from his truck-driver friend and what he thought about the New York / New Jersey area (I had never met a real truck driver).
I didn’t mind that on each visit, his dad put us to work cutting trees or driving a tractor, this was part of the experience — I rarely spoke more than two words with my friends’ fathers in suburban New Jersey. I didn’t mind that they, being Baptist and me being a Jew, were at first were a little skittish about meeting. But the meeting of two worlds was a pleasure for us all, and we became very close in short time. And now, returning after several decades, I was once again a little skittish, this time, being very much Anti-Trump, yet about finding myself in Trumpland-central, with John being a proud member.
But before getting into that, let’s get back to the fun stuff, the flight. Part of the pleasure of such a trip is the planning. You don’t just jump into the airplane and go like you do in a car. You need to check the weather, the winds, all the fluid levels, and download information on the destination airport’s altitude, runway configurations, and radio frequencies (for the airport weather information, tower and ground control — or “traffic” to coordinate with other airplanes if it doesn’t have a tower). And my favorite part is the navigation and planning the trip. You need to get out the VFR navigation charts.
There is VFR (Visual Flight Rules) flying — you only fly in good weather, rely on looking out the window and basic instruments, and don’t need to always be on air traffic control. And there is IFR (Instrument Flying) flying — you can fly through the cloud and haze, relying only on your instruments and must always be on air traffic control. Most private pilots such as myself just have a license to fly VFR. It’s not fun flying IFR unless you’re a professional, and it’s a really bad idea to be an occasional IFR pilot in case you hit bad weather, that’s a great way to get yourself and your passengers killed. If you’re not a professional and fly occasionally, just don’t fly in bad weather!
We could have simply plugged the airport three letter code into the GPS and just followed the heading on the computer, but that would be too easy. I wanted to go old school — navigating via VOR beacons and plain old pilotage (looking for roads, lakes, towns, and airport runways). VOR’s are my favorite way to navigate. There are VOR radio beacons scattered all over our great nation, and the equipment will tell you what (magnetic) compass heading you need to fly to get to that beacon. In order to “triangulate” your position, you need either two VOR beacons (that are NOT in direct alignment with each other), or you need to know the distance to the VOR you are tracking using DME (distance measuring equipment) if your plane has it. Our plane did NOT have DME equipment, because it has a GPS — which I didn’t want to use. Often there are VOR’s in or close to the line of your flight (as there was in our case), and if you’re really lucky there is one at the destination airport (There wasn’t in this case). So, the night before, I identified all the VOR’s we needed, wrote down their frequencies, and identified the visual checkpoints (towns, airports, etc.) and the intersection of the VOR’s when I should expect to see those checkpoints. Plus I had to make sure we didn’t fly over any parachute areas or into military or restricted airspace, and then identify any airports we would fly near and thus should either contact the tower, or fly over the airspace at a high enough altitude. And as I went to sleep that evening, I looked over the charts and flight plan again just to get familiar with it, and to dream about our little adventure the next day.
We flew out of Weltzien Skypark, a little uncontrolled airfield about 50 miles south of Cleveland. John taxied the plane, while I set our altimeter setting to match the airport elevation (the altimeter has to be constantly adjusted to the current air pressure), punched in the frequencies for the Mansfield and Flagcity VOR’s, and aligned the gyroscope compass (The DG — directional Gyro) to the magnetic compass — this has to be done at least once a hour (but must be done while the plane is not changing its heading or bouncing around). John rolled us down runway 21 (Which is aligned with compass heading 210) and rotated the plane at around 55 knots to get us airborne. I took control at around 1000 feet, and turned right heading out on a heading of 270 degrees (due West) per our flight plan.
It took me about 15 minutes to get used to flying a plane after 18 years. I had to climb out to 3000 feet, throttle back and trim the plane for level flight several times as it picked up speed, reduce the prop speed, maintain the altitude and heading while being bounced around a little, look out for other planes, and of course navigate per the flight plan. It’s pretty hairy doing all these things at once, while also taking in the sheer excitement and drama of being in a small plane after all these years and chatting with John about it. John kept leaning out the fuel/air mixture to maintain optimal fuel consumption, and also contacted Air Traffic Control (ATC) to get Flight Following. Flight Following is optional when flying VFR, but it’s a good idea to get on radar services so ATC will notify you if you might hit another airplane, and direct you to change your heading or altitude if necessary (It’s not their job to tell you how to get to where you’re going unless you filed an IRF flight plan). John contacted Mansfield approach to notify them of our position and destination, they in turn gave us a 4 digit squawk code to enter into our transponder.
ATC radar works via a transponder, not radar that bounces off the plane. Each plane has its own squawk code. The ATC radar broadcasts a signal, and each transponder responds allowing ATC to know the plane’s position and identity. If a plane is not on ATC services, it should be set to a squawk code of 1200, to identify it as a plane not talking to ATC. (ATC can see it, but not talk to it). Many pilots like to fly without ATC, because otherwise you have to pay attention to the talk on the radio, in case the ATC controller wants to tell or ask you something (by referring to your tail number — Skylane 484 in our case)
Our first checkpoint was about 15 minutes out — Mansfield Ohio (BTW: Where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed). In addition to the above, I also had to establish our crab angle. We were flying out at 270, and I was flying roughly on the Mansfield 270 VOR radial line, but winds were from the North West, pushing us slightly to the left, so I crabbed to plane to fly at roughly at a 280 heading to maintain a 270 actual heading. At this point I was focusing too much on the instruments to maintain the heading, and John reminded me to stop focusing on the instruments and just fly the plane and look out the window, picking a spot in the distance to fly towards. Duh, why didn’t I think of that.
Central Ohio and Indiana are really flat, and are endless farms and small roads. So unlike California, it’s hard to pick such a point in the distance. But John told me something new — all the roads and farms in the Mid-West are aligned to North, South, East, and West. I had no idea! So I could more or less just fly our 270 head along the roads.
However, the roads are aligned to TRUE north, south etc, not MAGNETIC north, south, etc that our compass is set to. In Ohio, the Magnetic Declination is around 8 degrees west (The difference between magnetic and true north). So we ended up flying just about 8 degrees to the South of these roads — a slight left angle.
After finally getting comfortable with the flight, I realized, I’m flying over Trumpland!
Unlike living in a metropolitan area, the towns don’t blend into each other as they do in suburbia. Ohio and Indiana are scattered small towns with an occasional larger town/city separated by 10+ miles with lots of farmland, isolated houses, small lakes, and churches in between. (I didn’t notice any temples or mosques). You could see just how isolated most of the people are. I saw many houses surrounded by acres of land with long roads, often dirt roads connecting them to main roads. The larger towns (for example Lima Ohio), were few and far between, and appeared to be largely farm or industrial related.
This vision of seeing Trumpland from the air at a few thousand feet matched what I had experienced on the ground. This was the heartland of the United States, a community connected very much to the land, a largely quiet existence where one could live in a peaceful environment and fall asleep to the sounds of nature on a large piece of land with neighbors not right on top of you. Folks who put in a good day’s work creating tangible products such as food, tires, and industrial equipment, and would come home and spend most of their leisure time with their family and extended family who often lived nearby, and who’s connection to community was often a Church or a hobby like flying — it was fun hanging out at the Skypark airfield the night before our flight, chatting with the pilots, students, and instructors. There wasn’t a big city, or high-pressure suburb to consume our thoughts, this was very much about the simple life enjoying the local community, a hobby, the fresh air, and most important the low stress. I didn’t feel isolated, because I was with my friend and his wife, and our little airport community. I enjoyed going to sleep at night with the window open, hearing the sounds of nature.
During our flight, I chatted with John about how the Senate favors the Mid-West Trumpland and the House of Representatives favors the population centers around the big cities. A split nation — something that will probably remain so for many years to come. At first it seems wrong that half of our legislative body (and over represented in presidential elections) should be driven by this Trumpland which is so different from the rest of the America that I know. But then I remembered, that the founders of our country designed it this way to make sure the wide geography of America’s rural heartland was not overshadowed by the dense population centers. Things are the way they were designed to be. I wondered, does this make sense in today’s world?
I thought to myself if one believes in democracy, one must view Trumpland really as America’s Heartland. My own experiences with the Heartland are ambivalent. I loved growing up outside New York City, and now living in the city of San Francisco, having had the opportunity to constantly mix with so many different people across multiple spectrums of race, socioeconomic status, education, and gender expression. I wouldn’t give that up. But yet, when I travel to the Heartland, it’s very simplicity, the warmness of its small communities, being around the people who provide our food and manufacturing, and fight our wars due to a simple sense of pride and love for America — these things relax me, and warm me. I was drawn to this world when I first experienced it during college, and I’m drawn to it now when I think about how great it would be to live a simpler life vs. the insanity of the city.
But I wouldn’t give up the city, certainly not now. Maybe when I retire, but even then I don’t know if I could handle the isolation and the homogeneity. Yet I do long for that simpler, warmer world, as I wonder what am I missing, what have I lost by living in the city (or the surrounded suburbs). I’m torn.
I am vehemently against Trump. And John has his reasons for supporting Trump. And having been an aviator and officer in the navy, who was involved in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and now a security consultant and options trader, John is not just a country bumpkin mouthing off. His arguments were very cogent and make me think about things like the economic condition of a vast swath of America, where government investment is going, the insanity of the fast-paced media not giving us a chance to think, the intense focus on the rights of minorities while ignoring the plight of the Heartland.
I don’t know where the “truth” or the “answer” lies. But I do know that I feel like we’ve lost a big part of our soul living in the fast pace metropolitan areas, fueled by a fast pace media, and an ultra competitive lifestyle. And I do know that when I visit the Heartland, I feel a sense of warmth that I crave. I think that the Heartland is not only important to provide our food, industry, and personnel for the armed forces, but to remind us in part who we are, and the importance of our connection to the Earth (which is so important for our collective health as a society). There is much wisdom in our constitution, and one big element of that wisdom is remembering that the Heartland is part of us, and it would serve all of us to remember that. What better way to do that by visiting via car or small plane, by going to little towns there every once in a while, vs. flying over it at 35,000 feet (actually Flight Level 350) at 450 knots on our way from one big city to another.
Above 18,000 feet, all altimeters are set to 29.92 inches, ensuring that every jet is at exactly the same altitude when assigned a “Flight Level”. Air pressure changes rapidly when flying at 450 knots, and since one is well above any mountains, best to just set the altimeter to a standard setting. So when the captain says we are at 35,000 feet, we are probably not actually at 35,000 feet — the altimeter just says 35,000 feet. One could be off by 1000 feet, but all planes are off by the same amount.
The joy of the meeting of these two worlds, and what we would learn from each other is what America is all about. And then, perhaps we could better work together to understand what the Trumpland phenomenon is all about — because I think it’s trying to tell us something. I wish that BOTH sides can see this and have an opportunity to mix.
I have had many great pleasures living in San Francisco. One of my greatest pleasures is performing cabaret piano and singing as a trans woman, where I have the opportunity to meet many visitors. On one occasion I met an elderly woman from rural Ireland, she was a very conservative Catholic and had never met anybody who wasn’t perfectly white and perfectly straight. She had a blast at my show. Her son who lives in San Francisco had brought her to the club (Martuni’s a piano bar). Several years later, her son came up to me at Martini’s and said, his mother still talks about how much fun it was to meet me. Now she has a little San Francisco DNA in her mind, and now I have rural Ireland on my bucket list. Sure I could get pictures online about rural Ireland, or I could watch a TV show about it, but there’s nothing like meeting people in person who are different from you. There is nothing like being part of a real global community, by feeling, touching, talking, and BEING it.
Landing in the Heartland
After taking in the Heartland, we finally had the airport in West Lafayette Indiana in sight. We switch from ATC to the Tower when we were just over the city, and John just kept letting me fly. I chopped the power to first get us down to 1600 feet, the traffic pattern altitude of the airport (1000 feet about ground level), and turned left to enter the downwind for runway 05 (Paralleling the runway in the opposite direction we were to land). As I squared my heading to roughly 230 (180 degrees from 050), I noticed again the city was surrounded by nothing but farmland. I understood why my nephew said there wasn’t much to do there other than study and eat.
I chopped the power further, and pulled up on the nose to reduce our airspeed, while maintaining altitude and re-trimmed the plane (so I didn’t have to keep pulling on the yolk) for the lower airspeed. John dropped in 10 degrees of flaps to reduce the speed we could land at and increase our drag (and airspeed further), and also increased the prop speed to get us the most optimal power for landing. As I was turning towards the runway, while ensuring we stayed in alignment and our airspeed and altitude were on target, I wondered when John would take over — it had been 18 years since I had done this. But he didn’t other than reminding me not to overpower the plane, and then dropping in another 10 degrees of flaps while I pushed down on the nose and re-trimmed the plane again to ensure we maintained our airspeed. The most important thing to do when landing it to make sure you don’t go too slow, while also making sure you don’t end up hitting a tree or power line, so if you’re coming in too low, you need to add power, but not too much — give it time to respond. Flying a plane is counterintuitive to most people — you don’t go higher or lower by pulling up or down on the nose, you do it by raising or lowering the power and waiting a few seconds. You raise or lower the nose to adjust your airspeed. Coming in on final approach, I was busy thinking about maintaining the right airspeed, which varies slightly by plane, while not getting too low, and John made this suggestion again, stop looking at the instruments, look at the window and fly the plane by feel. Stop worrying about the technicalities. I’ve been spending too much time in the Silicon Valley Tech world and the big city and I forgot about some of the basic fundamentals of intuition. With my left hand on the yolk controlling airspeed, and my right hand on the throttle controlling altitude, and my eyes looking at the runway, I gradually eased off on the power as we came upon the runway and touched down.
Wow after 18 years, I was still able to land a plane! But I did it by John reminding me that in a complex situation, first and foremost make sure something feels right, and most importantly to you and those around you, make sure you enjoy the ride. Good Heartland principles.
