The Arrogant Pilot

A question no pilot ever wants to hear:

“How many souls onboard?”

“Souls”, as if Fate already did Gann’s hunting.

The real question would become, “how many souls on the ground?” (Or if you were my father-in-law, “how many idiots involved?”)

I use the plane to commute to work. From a home with too many animals, to a job with too many investors.

On one early Monday morning, I took things for granted. I cut corners. I made certain assumptions about a departing fuel truck and an obscured fuel gauge—no substitute for pilot responsibility.

Thirty minutes later, barely clearing the redwood ridge tops of the Santa Cruz mountains, I would dive for the first straight section of road I could find in the Silicon Valley. I may work for the investors of Joby Aviation and SpaceX, but I was not above a checklist.

Aviate — Navigate — Communicate

FlightAware indicated I had reached 3,300′. Sunlight pierced through winter’s greyscales as I looked down on the already clogged rush hour roads, backlights in one direction, headlights in the other.

I later explained to investigators that I was trying to stay under the Class Bravo. But I was also pretty beaten up. Unknowingly empty, without ballast, I was tossed around in moderate to heavy turbulence. Rather than endure the coast chop, I cut inland. Too low for Norcal Approach, I just called up Palo Alto Tower directly.

Right then my engine started to quit. I tried nursing it along and they asked if I could make San Jose.

“Negative.”

They directed me to Moffett.

“Negative.”

I needed a way down immediately. So, I made the hardest turn I would ever make, away from a field and into a sea of buildings, hard edges, right angles, steel, power lines, and most importantly, commuters. Just as Apple’s Infinite Loop appeared off my right, I was suddenly faced with rather finite circumstances.

Aviate — Navigate — Communicate

Never too late for a checklist.

Door Theory

If you give someone ten objects to carry across a room, and ask them what they just carried, it’s an easy test. But in a twist of evolutionary biology, if you ask them to recall the objects after walking through a simple doorway, they will be lucky to get three. Why? Because neurobiologically we are wired to assess the new environment. Think cave, think tiger. This comes at a cost in modern day life equal to wiping our operating system clean when new circumstances emerge. Engine out or heart surgery, we now have checklists.

Two Choices

Thirty seconds left in the bank. My head cleared. A soccer field appeared at 2 o’clock, easily reachable, no problem in the SuperCub. But it was a school, and I knew others’ kids were there. No match for a propeller.

Another hard turn away from the known. I banked again. A thin ribbon of freeway straightened out at twelve o’clock.

Then two last choices.

To land with, or against, traffic?

A propeller and wing full of fuel (I thought at the time) no match for under head, unsuspecting traffic.

I might live, they would not.

I steered over the southbound lane, and started counting overpasses. On battery power I flashed my lights, rocked my wings. Two high speed oncoming SUVs splintered around me, cleaving my once aerial view now suddenly into a terrestrial one. I dove under a high tension power line and violently pulled back up before yanking hard on my flaps.

My wing stalled. I came down with solid thud between two overpasses, using what was left of a roll to make the shoulder of the freeway. An off-duty cop swung his truck diagonally and the freeway came to halt. No cars would pass for six hours.

(Dear Father-in-Law: one idiot on board.)

It’s Not Your Father’s FAA Anymore

Twenty-four hours later, I arrived at the FAA, tail between my legs, able to show my face only because no souls were harmed.

Under a collection of pine trees, at a picnic table, I sat on on my hands across from my examiners like a schoolboy found picking on others.

“It’s not your father’s FAA anymore,” the lead investigator started. “We have been granted sweeping authority to determine your fitness and ability as a pilot”.

The magnitude of my oversight was officially dawning on me. I lowered my head, mumbled yessir.

“I know what you did,” said one of the investigators, brought in from Alaska. A line-of-sight gauge on an old plane can look full when in fact it’s empty. “There’s hardly a pilot up north that doesn’t fly without a roll of duct tape and a jerry can of gas”. But never a substitute for a flashlight and a dipstick.

Mandatory Sentencing

“All five of your infractions come with a mandatory sentencing” the investigator concluded.

Counseling, full psychiatric review; subpoenaed medical, mechanical and mental health records.

We talked through the afternoon. We talked about glide ratios, airspace, and pilot currency. They casually shared stories about flying in high winds in Alaska, backwards. They also talked about the closure of a nearby airport due to planned real estate development, and neighbors’ concerns for safety. Unspoken but on all of our minds was the contraction of a way of life, a culture built on regulators not doers.

“We know this is how you get to work and we want to get you flying again as soon as possible.”

The Higher You Go, The Harder You Fall

I would shut down Bay Area traffic for six hours. My phone would blow up, and 50,000 messages on YouTube and Reddit later, my ego would eventually come to land. Wings torn off.

I became the Silicon Valley guy that couldn’t be bothered to fuel his plane.

The notoriety led to other notoriety and 2024 notched as a year with many learnings. “The higher you go, the harder you fall” one friend commented. But still others requested to be my first flight—get-back-on-that-horse love.

With the wings back on, I nervously test flew the Cub out of Palo Alto and it felt like it flew better than before. Probably because it had fuel, sad trombone. Departing the Bay over NASA’s Wind Tunnel, and Stanford’s Linear Accelerator — both identifiers for inbound NorCal traffic — I headed back to the coast, longing to get home. I took a short detour over some limestone quarries — pretending to shoot the “German supply trains” — before leveling out over the strawberry fields of Watsonville. I was flying again. The s-turns of the Salinas River leading me home.