When I wrote recently about watching an Apollo moonshot from 7,000 feet over Cape Canaveral, dichroic spoke of her husband, an aspiring astronaut. I never had such lofty aspirations. I was too old, too fat, too unfit when the astronaut program began. And I was far from being a natural pilot.
It took me too long to solo, and years after that before I was ready to take my private pilot's examination, the rating that allows you to carry passengers.
I had done most of my practicing in my Stinson 108-2 Voyager, a rag-wing tail wheel plane about the size of Cesna 172. The key thing is, it was a tail-wheel airplane, which meant you landed with the tail rolling along the ground, the nose high in the air.
But I took my private pilot's exam in a Cessna 172, a standard tricycle landing gear in which the plane lands level.
When I had completed most of the exam, and came in for a landing, I automatically pulled the nose high in the air to land on the tail wheel. Since the Cessna didn't have one, there was a hell of a grinding sound as the tiedown post dragged down the runway, undoubtedly shooting sparks all the way.
The examiners cursed roundly, reminded me I wasn't in my tail-wheel Stinson, and had me try again.
We examined the tiedown post when we get out. It was bent.
He passed me anyhow but said as he signed my papers:
"Now go out and learn to fly."