Only crazy people fly on small planes.

      I think that I have to decide if flying is really worth the risk.  I work as a wildland fire dispatcher.  This means that if a wildfire starts anywhere in the United States, I can be called to go and help. Doing this kind of job means that I have to travel a lot.  Sometimes we have to go to  fairly  remote locations.  During My first year as a dispatcher, I was ordered to go to the very tiny town of Ely, Nevada, 250 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada.     
    I am not a wimp about flying, but surely everyone has those thoughts and images that go through their minds when it is time to get onboard a small aircraft. I always think, How is this thing really going to stay in the air?  Why am I doing this?  Is the money really worth it?  Well, I guess it is, because I always find myself boarding  the death  machine. 
    On this particular assignment, I had to first fly into Las Vegas.  It is not a bad place to have a few hours’ layover; however it was the middle of summer and the heat was stifling.  I knew I had to change planes and figured the terminal was just down the way.  I  was wrong.  I was told to go outside of the airport and wait for a shuttle.  A shuttle?  So outside I went, to sit in the smothering hot air and wait for a shuttle to take me to an unknown location. 
    When the shuttle arrives, I get on with the other five people waiting.  After a fifteen minute ride, we arrived at a tiny airport on the outskirts of Las Vegas.  At the new location, I take a seat with everyone else and again wait.  When it is time for us to board, I get in line. All I really see is the back of the guy in front of me.  As we get closer to the plane, it doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger.  I start to panic.  Man, that doorway looks awfully small.  Can all these people really fit on that aircraft?  In addition, if they do, how will it get off the ground?
    As I ducked down to board the plane, I looked down the aisle; there were eight seats on each side. This plane was so tiny I could not even stand up straight, and I am only 5’2”!  I felt as if we were being stuffed in like sardines.  Since I was at the back of the line, I ended up in the very first seat, behind the bulkhead.    I try not to panic.  I am a firefighter.  Firefighters do not panic.  I take my seat and look straight out the windshield of the plane.  I can see all the instruments, knobs, buttons, and switches.  They are so close I think I could hit the switch for the landing gear if I knew which was which. As we taxi down the runway, I just know in my heart that this little tiny tin can of a plane is going to fall into pieces as we accelerate.  I can feel every rock and crack in the runway. What felt like a lifetime later, we finally lifted up into the air and the ride smoothed out.  Okay, I think, half-way there. 
    Everyone on the plane settles in for what I hope will be a short ride.  I realize by the appearance of some of the passengers that  this is just the daily flight home after a hard day of work.  The guy right across from me must have been a construction worker of some kind; he wore a camouflaged vest over a work  shirt and shabby jeans. He was covered from head to toe with road dust.  Some of the ladies in the back even had a few shopping bags, must have spent the day in Vegas spending instead of gambling.  If they were not worried, why should I be worried?  They do this all the time. 
    However, I was still a little nervous, and just wanted this whole thing to end.  I watched the little red blip on the screen between the pilot and copilot move slowly, but steadily toward our destination.  Knowing we were getting closer, I started to relax.  It had been a very long day, starting before the sun had even risen, so my eyes began to close.  Just as I got nice and cozy, an ear piercing alarm started going off.  The alarm jolted me and everyone else on the flying soda can awake.  I was sure we were either on fire or going down for the last time.  I heard a little girl a few seats back scream and start to cry.  We must have lost a wing or hit a bird or a cloud pothole.  About this time, I looked into the cockpit to see if there was earth or sky showing and realize the pilot and copilot were trying their best not to bust out a belly laugh.  They were not doing a very good job.  Now, I would not want to accuse these professionals of setting off an alarm just for their amusement but they didn’t seem to be worried about finding the source of the siren.  I think I truly lost about five years of my life at that point.  And again I am asking myself those same questions. “How is this thing really going to stay in the air?  Why am I doing this?  Is the money really worth it?”  It is too late now.  Here I am in the air with only two ways down--straight, or on a slant when we land. 
I’m not sure if anyone else was as close to wetting their pants as I was, but there were a few screams and then signs of relief.  I was too terrified to turn and look at anyone else on the plane.  I just kept my eyes straight forward and prayed for the runway to come into view.
    Fifteen of the longest minutes later my prayers are answered when the runway comes into view.  Okay, I tell myself, now these pilots just have to stop laughing long enough to land this plane without killing us all.  As we touchdown and taxi to the tiny building that passes for a terminal, I feel every stone, crack and blade of grass poking through the runway and think to myself, Well, we didn’t fall from the sky.
    Now I know it may sound corny, but the first thing that came to my mind as I ducked out of the doorway and down those three little steps, was to kiss the tarmac.  And I think I really might have done it if there weren’t other people around, and I didn’t have someone waiting for me. I told myself at that very moment that I will never fly again.  Of course, because of my job, this is just not an option.  I have flown so much now that riding on big plans no longer bothers me.  But I will never forget the time I flew to Ely, Nevada, on a plane that was powered by a rubber band and flown by two pilots with a sick sense of humor.