How to Evade Ebola by Flying Yourself!
A man for all seasons, Bob is also a private pilot. I haven’t flown with him in awhile, for many reasons. But mostly it’s because the weather has to be perfect, and I have to have a destination in mind. Like the Love Bug. You won’t find me flying over to Newport News for lunch. And also there’s this, I just don’t like flying! But yesterday, I squeezed myself into the plane.
Pre-flight Check
Me: The interior looks great! Ouch, oh yeah I forgot I’ve got to take my earrings off before I put the headset on. Thinking to myself – Let’s see where can I stow them? Can’t reach my bag in the back… wait, I’ll just clip them onto my necklace.
Bob: What? Here you’ve got to have the mic right up to your mouth, like this, like you’re kissing it
Me: OK, are we clear? What about those clouds?
Bob: We’re clear to 9,000 ft. Those clouds are around 5
Me: Good, so it’s smooth sailing?
And it was pretty smooth, the clouds underneath us looked like marshmallow fluff, until I noticed a little red button light up and Bob started fooling around, quickly, and he’s never quick in the cockpit, with the throttle and the landing gear
Me: What’s up? (said meekly and like I didn’t know something was wrong). Thinking to myself – we are 9,000 ft in the air and the landing gear isn’t supposed to come down until we descend in another 200 miles or so
Bob: We’re just going to slow down a little
Me: Straining to read the red button on Bob’s panel – WARNING GEAR UNSAFE!
Warning Light
Bob: The door’s probably not fully closing (the Piper Arrow has retractable wheels, and the doors to said wheels were just replaced in its annual)
Me: Thinking to myself – So this is it, we’ll have to fly around the airport to burn off all the fuel and then land on foam, if Charlottesville even has foam to put down on the runway, and we’ll make the local news, there will be fire trucks…
Bob: We’ve got three green (which means all three wheels have come down) so it’s not a problem.
For an emergency physician/pilot, nothing is a problem. These people are the epitome of cool under pressure. Remember the voice recording of Sully landing in the Hudson? That’s Bob, telling me there’s nothing to worry about.
It wasn’t like flying around the Jersey Shore this time of year, with its kaleidoscope of pink and red cranberry bogs. But it was autumn in the Shenandoah Valley and beautiful just the same. It is also Homecoming weekend for UVA, so yesterday we landed amid the Big Jets with all their private pilots in uniform hanging around talking about who was getting enough sleep.
There wasn’t another plane in the sky all the way from Nashville, but three hours later and finally on the ground – all three green down – our little four-seater Piper was the poor relative to the top 1% of the 1% of alums flying in to see the Hoos play the Heels.
Me: Perfect landing. Thanks honey, that beats 9 hours in the car!
Bob: Smiling, thinking to himself – I’m gonna call that mechanic first thing Monday morning. 
MountainMornings 
Cool way to get there! Not sure I’m be so brave. My father flew– until I was born and my mother “grounded” him.
I didn’t fly at all while the kids were little. But they are always willing to go up with him now!