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off the runway.
    On this day, on my first solo cross-country trip, I forgot to set my trim to the takeoff position (a potentially dangerous mistake). And it had last been set in a very nose-high position for landing.
    I wanted this to be the smoothest takeoff I’d ever made. Mine was the only plane taxiing out, and I knewMr. Radio Man was watching me. I looked through my before-takeoff checklist, missing the trim item, and announced on the radio that I was taking off. At airports with no tower, you always look to be sure no one is landing or is on the runway, announce that you’re taking off, and go.
    I started my takeoff roll. Liftoff is normally at about fifty-five miles an hour. At thirty-five miles an hour, the nose wanted to lift off the ground, but I held it down. I was puzzled. At liftoff I released forward pressure on the yoke, and the nose pitched up at a dangerously high angle. I firmly pushed the nose back to almost level flight.
    Mr. Radio Man would have seen my airplane charging down the runway for takeoff, but instead of smoothly flying off the runway, the plane lurched up into the air with the nose far too high, and then the nose suddenly pitched down to a level flight attitude. Awkward at best. Deathly at worst. Funny in between.
    Further humiliated, I realized my mistake and trimmed the aircraft. Never since have I forgotten to set takeoff trim. Those cheap mistakes have a way of burning themselves into your brain—seat belt, miles and minutes, takeoff trim.
    I landed safely at home, completed my after-landing check, and walked into the flight building. It was late afternoon and I wasn’t sure Mr. Vaughn would still be there. He was. Sitting at our table, waiting. No smile, no frown, no nothing.
    I told him that I’d missed the airport in Fayetteville the first time around.
    No smile, no frown, no nothing.
    “Did you learn anything?” he asked.
    “Yessir. I did.”
    “What?”
    “I learned not to confuse my miles and minutes.”
    “Good.”
    “And to set my takeoff trim.”
    “Oh. Good.”
    And that some runways are turf, I thought. And that different airports are at different altitudes.
    He filled out my grade sheet. I was expecting a Fair or a Fail. I got a Good.
    Having flown with about twenty instructor pilots since Mr. Vaughn, I now realize I was lucky to get him first. He was patient and very safety conscious. And he knew not to overpraise, because overconfidence can kill you. At this stage I was anything but overconfident.

The New War in Asia
    A FTER THIRTY-SEVEN HOURS of flying over a five-month period, I was awarded a private pilot’s license. It was March 1966, and in a couple of months I’d get my college degree as well. With my private pilot’s license I was free to take a passenger into the sky.
    “Why, sure,” said my mother. At age sixty-two, she had never been in an airplane.
    So six days after getting my license, we were off to the airport. A friend of mine, Ronnie Wiggins, was along. The Cherokee 140 was a two-seater. Ronnie would be my second passenger.
    Claire, the woman who ran the desk in the flight building, gave me the key to the airplane I’d reserved. Ronnie waited while my mother and I walked to the airplane.
    “Clyde, now are you sure about this?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    I insisted that she follow me around the airplane as I explained preflight checklist items. She didn’t say much.She seemed a bit preoccupied. After the preflight check, I helped her up onto the wing and into the cockpit. She’d never worn a seat belt, so I helped her get hers fastened.
    We took off. I was all talk about what I was doing and why: how the instruments worked, what they told me. I was just getting warmed up when she said, “Son, please don’t talk.” She grabbed my knee. “And don’t make any more of those
turns
unless you absolutely have to.”
    We flew about thirty minutes. I landed and took my friend Ronnie up for another thirty while my mother waited on the ground. I