AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - July 2018 - 24

FLYING LIFE

A risk worth taking

BY NATALIE BINGHAM HOOVER

'Wear a tight seatbelt and say your prayers'
"Security is mostly a superstition....Life is either a
daring adventure or nothing.
-Helen Keller
THE BUSINESS OF LIVING AND WORKING AND PLAYING

has always required a certain amount of courage. The
news is filled with school shootings, serial bombers, and
terrorist attacks. Sometimes it feels as if we should all
just stay safely locked inside our homes. But if we want
to life full lives, we have to make peace with the fact
that we will be sacrificing some of our security to do so.
Our most worthy pursuits almost always require taking
a risk of some sort.
Pilots demonstrate that brave human spirit particularly well. Whether you believe in God, the Tooth Fairy,

"It was like we suddenly hit a brick wall,"
he told me.

NATALIE BINGHAM
HOOVER holds a
pilot in command
type rating in a
Beechjet and does
corporate flying in
the Memphis area.

24 | AOPA PILOT July 2018

or the Jolly Green Giant, we know we are depending
on the good graces of something whenever we take off.
Despite all our talk about mitigating risk, good weather
decision making, and keeping our aircraft well-maintained, some things are just out of our hands, no matter
how well trained we are. As an FAA designated pilot
examiner, my applicants frequently teach me things
about flying, and about life. I was once giving a private
pilot checkride for a gentleman who made his own
checklist by pulling the required tasks from the POH
and adding some items of his own. "Fuel pump...check,"
he read aloud. "Flaps...check. Say a prayer...check." Here
was a pilot who was acknowledging the fact that flying
involves some risk, but he was daily choosing courage
as his modus operandi.
Another pilot I fly with on the Beechjet, Jim
Corkern, recently told me a story about a trip he took
with his wife and two friends in their Beechcraft
Bonanza A36. Corkern, a highly experienced, retired
FedEx pilot, was flying from Olive Branch, Mississippi,
to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, enjoying a westerly tailwind
and a perfectly smooth, VFR day. There was no precipitation in the area. The nearest cloud layer was above
him by several thousand feet. When he was about 10
miles east of Knoxville, Tennessee, descending through
5,000 feet for his approach into Gatlinburg, Corkern
experienced severe clear air turbulence. "It was like we

suddenly hit a brick wall," he told me. The downdraft
was so strong that everyone's heads hit the ceiling-
despite the fact that they were all, thankfully, wearing
their seatbelts. The front-seat passenger would later
report that he remembers looking over and seeing
Corkern slumped in his seat, head lolling forward
on his chest. Corkern's memory of that 30 seconds is
hazy at best, considering that the knock on the head
momentarily had him seeing stars. Somewhere in the
haze, Corkern managed to make a mayday call and pull
what he thought was the throttle to idle, a move that
prevented the airplane from overspeeding and probably saved their lives. When he regained his wits, the
Bonanza was in a left turning descent at 3,200 feet; and
the engine had stopped. Corkern then realized that he
had pulled the mixture to idle instead of the throttle,
and was able to get the engine restarted quickly.
By this time, ATC was calling, asking if they were
OK. "Sir, we've never seen anything like that. You were
instantly descending at over 3,600 feet per minute."
Corkern made the rest of the approach and landing
into Gatlinburg without incident. When he got everyone out of the airplane, he learned that his wife's head
was bleeding-a fact she had kept to herself, knowing
Corkern had enough to handle.
Scared by Corkern's story and wanting to learn
something from it, I asked him if he knew what caused
the turbulence. Although they were near the Smoky
Mountains, Corkern was flying on the upwind side,
which should have prevented him from encountering
any mountain waves. "Natalie, I wish I could tell you
that I saw a strange cloud or had some warning, but
there was nothing. The most I can figure is that it was
a downdraft caused by frontal activity. But in 47 years
of flying, I've never experienced anything like that. I
figure my chances are pretty good that I'll never see
anything like that again. If I learned anything, it's this:
Wear a tight seatbelt and say your prayers."
Here's hoping that we can all realize, like
Corkern, that some risks are worth taking. Aviation
is one of those. We know every time we line up for a
takeoff that bad things can happen. Engines do quit.
Weather can sneak up on us. But we fly anyway-not
because we are reckless, but because we have made
the decision to refuse to let fear keep us from doing
what we love.
AOPA
www.myaviation101.com

http://www.myaviation101.com

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - July 2018

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