10. Mae West

I never could have imagined that one day I would have my own airplane. I knew of only one other woman in the valley who owned one, and that may have been just a rumor. When I saw the add for N2234V I knew it was perfect. Small, unremarkable, with paint chipping in places and the seats threadbare, but with a really, really, big heart. “Mae West” as I have come to call her, is a sleek, pretty, faded royal blue and white Cessna 140 with rag wings and a 130 horsepower Lycoming O-290-D that is so big for her, the flywheel was chewing its way out of the cowling in places. I arrived in Chicago around the end of the pre-buy inspection. Arriving at the small airport at Sugar Grove, Illinois, I wasn’t quite sure where to go. My excitement propelled me to wander through and find the little plane parked in the shop, cowling off and a couple young men working over her. “HI!” I must have seemed completely unexpected. They would be finished shortly, and would do a test maintenance run-up “this is a great plane, I flew it before!” one of them said. They buttoned her up and grinned as they pushed her out into the soft rain, the smell of freshly wetted tarmac in the air. When they started the engine, my heart fluttered. I’m already in love! Taxiing back, they whipped the tail around as if showing her other side like runway model, making tiny windy streaks on the watery pavement. I would have to wait another excruciating 16 hours to climb in and fly her for the first time.

When it came time, the flight school set me up with a pleasantly exuberant CFI. He had just been accepted to the airlines and it would be one of his last training flights. Mae West had a classic feel, the kind of airplane that transports you to 1948, in an the era of inspiration and innovation - technological advancement, major theoretical and applied scientific breakthroughs, expeditions, and adventure. I could imagine the sleek lines of Mae carefully designed with a slide rule and sketched out with a pencil and paper. Not a part on her is frivolous, her classic beauty is accentuated by her utilitarian authenticity; an unassuming grace. The wood panel was simple, and the door clicked shut - just a small centimeter size piece of aluminum separating me from however far she would free me from the grips of the Earth’s gravity. Mae felt like an old friend, leaping off the ground with just as much ease as any 182, the controls crisp like a sports car. Her slick airframe flew so true, she gave no forgiveness for sloppiness. She stalled crisply, as if falling right off the page of the calculated critical angle of attack curve. On letting her cute button nose drop just a finger, she slipped gently and easily into the maximum structural cruising speed range with naught a hum from her oversized engine. I could not have been more happy.

By the end of the next day, the paperwork was signed, pictures were taken, and I was ready to fly Mae West (due west!) all the way back to Montana. It was surreal to fly my plane over the Midwest, across the Mississippi I’ve never seen, even by car, the Badlands, Devils Tower, the crazy winds of Wyoming, over the familiar Sapphires, all the way home to Stevensville. If Alaska didn’t teach me how to handle epic long cross-country flights in a little tailwheel Cessna, those South Dakota and Wyoming winds sure did. Since then, we’ve been on many adventures, building hours all over the Bitterroot Mountains and beyond. Over the last few years of flying the 140, the hours I built in that time would have never been affordable or available to me through renting. In about 3 years since getting a private pilot certificate I have over 500 hours, most of which are with Mae.