When we began to practice the play, I quickly saw how Coach planned to negate the upman’s advantage. The ball popped high in the air, which caused the upman to have to jump to catch the ball. Once his feet were off the ground, it made the catch much harder, especially if he had someone hitting him after they’d had ten yards to gather their speed.
“Why doesn’t he just fair-catch it?” I asked.
Punt returners did that to prevent injury if the kicking team had them surrounded.
“The ball has already hit the ground. Once it touches the ground, you can’t call a fair catch,” Coach Stevens explained.
I couldn’t wait until Wednesday, because this was going to be fun.
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Right after practice, we rushed off to get our flying in. My company was picking up the cost of Cassidy’s flying lessons, so she was with Brook and me. I think we made the flight school’s month when the three of us wanted to get in as much flying as possible. I wanted to have my license by the time I left for LA. To accomplish that, I had to complete forty hours of flight time, with an instructor along for thirty of them. The other ten hours would be solo flights. Brook had been taking things slower and was about to wrap up her required training. Today, she would put in an hour of solo flying.
We walked into the training facility to find our instructors waiting. Roy had insisted that he train me personally. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was the problem child or if he wanted to draw on my celebrity. Either way, I was learning from the owner of the flight school. I figured that had to count for something.
“You ready?” Roy asked.
“Yes, sir.”
That seemed to be our usual greeting.
“What are we doing today?” I asked.
“We’re going to turn the plane around a point of reference. This will be one of the things you’ll be asked to execute during your test. The point you fly around needs to be easily viewable from the air, and there must be a place nearby to land in case of trouble. We’re lucky that farms aren’t too far from here. We can use the intersection of two county roads as a practice point.”
“What will they be testing me on?” I asked.
“You’ll maneuver the airplane while compensating for drift during turns while you orient the flight path with the ground as a reference. They’ll want to see you divide your attention, so you’ll monitor both the inside and the outside of the airplane. You’ll make sure you don’t bank the plane over forty-five degrees while you turn. We want to keep the altitude within a hundred-foot range and airspeed within ten knots.”
“What would cause me to fail?” I asked.
“Failure to pick a suitably clear area; picking a reference point that’s hard to see; problems with banking the plane; forgetting to recognize wind drift; and a variety of other things. I’ll point out failure points when we’re in the air,” Roy assured me.
When we got into the air, we found a county road intersection that didn’t have any trees or power lines nearby. Roy had me run through the procedure checklist. I was at an altitude of a thousand feet and approached the intersection downwind.
One fun thing was when you turned from downwind to crosswind. I learned that it could cause the plane to skid, much like I’d put a car into a power slide. Who knew that flying in circles could be such an adventure?
“Keep your procedures in mind,” Roy said. “Let’s try it again.”
We spent a full hour just on that. By the end of the hour, I had gotten the hang of it. I also had a fuller appreciation of the procedures Roy kept hammering into me. They provided guidelines that, if followed, made flying easier. I still needed to use good judgment, but this system gave me a foundation to execute the turns.
The only time Roy let his calm slip was when a wind gust caused me to overcompensate, and suddenly we were at an almost ninety-degree angle. He grabbed his stick and corrected us before I put us into a barrel roll. Most days, I would have been all for that, but today it scared the shit out of me. I was glad he was in the cockpit with me.
That brought back memories of my wingboard adventure. I still had nightmares of spinning out of control on Devin Range’s deathtrap when he conned me into testing it for him. I honestly didn’t want to repeat that today.
When we were done, I met Cassidy and Brook in the lobby. Cassidy looked shaken-up.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I about died,” she shared. Brook and I stared at her until she gave us details. After all, turnabout was fair play. “The first time I executed the turn, I put us into a death spiral.”
I could envision that if you took too tight of a turn and lost altitude, it could be scary.
“Cool. I almost put us into a barrel roll,” I said to share my misadventure.
“Yeah, I did that when I started,” Brook admitted.
“You mean I wasn’t the only one to put my instructor in danger?” Cassidy asked.
“Wait until you learn to land. That can be exciting,” Brook assured Cassidy.
“Come on, let’s go eat,” I suggested.
My stomach growled its agreement.
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