Washing The Bird

First published in AOPA Pilot, (Dec 2006) the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Magazine with a circulation of over 400,000.

Washing the Bird
Soaping up flying memories
By Michael Lee

Washing an airplane is nothing like washing a car. You can't just take it to the drive-through and enjoy the thrill of soapy water squirting at your face behind the windshield, big roller brushes thrashing away, and the air dryer sweeping away the beads of water. Not only is this a job that has to be done by hand, but also most airplanes are a lot bigger than cars. They require special soaps and polishes that are kind to their aluminum skin, and they take a whole lot longer to wash. It can take all day if you are picky. I'm generally not.
I remember the kid who used to wash my airplane for me. If only he were still around. He had approached me one day at the airport and asked if he could wash my airplane, as he needed money for his flying lessons. "Sure," I said, "how much?"
He told me it would be 100 bucks.
"Wow! You must be either very good or very expensive," I recall saying to him at the time. This was back when avgas could still be bought for just more than a buck a gallon, not the four bucks or more a gallon it costs today, and an hour of flight training was around $45.
"I'm very careful and will do a good job," Tim politely informed me. And he did. It took him six hours and when he was finished Archer 53A hadn't looked so good in years. Tim would wash my airplane for me once or twice a year and always for the same price and with the same pleasing result. Sometimes I'd help out just for the heck of it, and marvel as I watched the way he focused on every move as he rubbed, squirted, polished, and buffed.
Mine wasn't the only airplane Tim washed. He built up a healthy clientele, paid for his flying lessons, and earned his private pilot certificate. Shortly afterward, he went off to an aviation college to become a professional pilot flying the big iron. Now he's a first officer for a major airline and probably no longer washes airplanes, although it wouldn't surprise me if one day at some hub airport I spotted Tim doing his preflight walk around a Boeing 737 with polishing cloth in hand. I missed him when he left and was never able to replace him. So the job came back to me. I was really no match for him, even though I'd studied his moves. A three-hour job is the best the airplane gets from me.
My mind wanders. It's too difficult to focus. I find myself thinking about other things — aviation things, to be sure — prompted by my proximity to my airplane, other airplanes, and the comings and goings at the not-so-busy little airport. When I'm washing my airplane, I'm feeding my passion for aviation, but not with the washing.
Today as I wash, I think of many things. Noticing the small chips in the paintwork on the tail, I'm reminded how they got there-a brush I had with some freezing rain on a flight last winter. How relieved I was to be able to escape the ice by finding warmer air above. There are some blackish bug remnants on the wing, and my mind goes back to a late-evening arrival in northern Maine in early summer and the black flies being thick enough to blur my visibility during landing.
My reverie is broken by the sound of engines. I watch a big twin-engine amphibious Grumman Goose whose pilot is practicing some takeoffs and landings. The beautiful, gray, ungainly bird struggles skyward with engines roaring, into the shimmering sunlight. I sigh in appreciation and bring my attention back to the bugs with the movement of soapy sponge on metal. For a few strokes I focus like Tim, but can't do it for long. Soon I'm recalling more wonderful moments from the past, moments that only being a pilot and owning an airplane could give me.
I recall the 7-year-old whose mom would bring her to the airport on weekends just to watch from the parking lot. One beautiful Sunday just like today, seeing them there as usual, I asked the youngster, "Would you like to go for a ride today?" The look on her face at that moment comes vividly back to me along with the sound of her hearty "Wow!" shortly afterward, as wheels left the ground and we were flying. I saw her mom in the backseat with tears of joy streaming down her face, watching as her daughter fulfilled a dream to fly. Just thinking about it now makes me smile. Sharing my passion in some ways far surpasses the act of engaging in it.
My sponge moves over the lights on the wing tips. In my mind's eye I see the lights blinking as I wing over New York City at 10,000 feet on a clear, crisp night in the fall, gazing at the lights ablaze below, spread out like a giant twinkling carpet. As I wipe the antennas under the belly I recall the feeling of having mastered the use of instruments they feed. How cool it is to experience the exhilaration and satisfaction of breaking out of a low overcast sky on an instrument approach just 300 feet above the end of the runway after spending hours surrounded by nothing but gray-to be guided to the runway solely by the navigation instruments with no visual reference to ground or horizon until the last few seconds of the flight. I revel for a moment in the trust, the training, and the patience it takes to pull that off.
The buffing is as complete as I want to make it, and I put the buckets, sponges, and cloths away. Three hours have passed quickly. My time with my thoughts has been enjoyable even if I haven't given the job at hand my undivided attention. The result probably wouldn't meet Tim's standards. I think about that some more and recall some other conversations I had with Tim. He was passionate too. But was his passion really about washing airplanes? In hindsight, I think not.
His conversation never revealed much excitement about flying here at this airport or about washing airplanes. But he talked a lot about airlines and Boeings and the Airbus, and the dream job he would have one day. His driving force was propelling him into the front seat of a jet and he would settle for nothing less. What is more, he knew what he needed to do to get there and he did it. My airplane was part of his ticket and he took very good care of that ticket. It was his passion to one day fly as a professional that gave him his focus. Washing my bird was an important steppingstone in Tim's overall flight plan, and so he gave it the same focus he would when he stepped into that jet. There was a mission to accomplish. Time spent remembering could wait. Buffing my airplane to perfection would help buy those future days that would fuel his memories. I hope he's somewhere up there right now building them.
I chuckle to myself as I come to the tentative conclusion that my difficulty in washing the bird comes not from my dislike of the job itself, nor does it come from my difficulty in focusing. When I'm shooting an approach in ugly weather or landing in a 20-knot crosswind I am very focused.
My airplane-washing mind drift comes simply because I am fortunate enough to have accumulated such great memories from aviation. I'm free to choose not to focus on earthly pursuits when I'm around airplanes. I can allow my thoughts to take over to fuel my passion and take me away from the task. I have nothing to lose by allowing it. Yet when I'm flying I can switch in an instant and become completely focused to the task at hand — even getting ahead of the airplane to be ready for what happens next. It's really just a choice for me to indulge my memories and be the half-hearted airplane washer I seem to be. After all, how could I enjoy washing my bird if it wasn't for the happy-memory logbook in my mind? Yet three hours are long enough to indulge it, no matter how good the memories. I head for home. Mission accomplished.
Michael Lee, AOPA 1153628, is an Australian-born freelance writer and private pilot who owns a 1979 Piper Archer.