The R46 and Little Louie

Epilogue

There is a place where the federal government prefers not to go. In this place, the locals don't take to strangers. They drive pickup trucks with long barreled rifles strapped across the back of their cabs. The one-lane bridges cross creeks with picturesque names like "cripple" and "bootlace" and you have to wait if you meet someone coming the other way. Most gas stations have only one pump and everyone has a dog. Men and boys wear their baseball caps the right way, you can still buy corn liquor in a glass jar and a good neighbor is just that. 

In this place, deep in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee, there is rumored to be a seventy year-old pilot living quietly and at peace with himself. If you go far enough into these secluded gentle mountains, you may find him between the soft greenness of mountain slopes, in a lush valley laced by sparkling mountain streams, rushing boisterously from the tree-lined slopes to the rich fields of the valley below. 

Walk along a stream lined with granite rocks rounded by thousands of years of rushing cascading water and step past the green ferns. Brush against the soft, green, mossy rocks and you will come to a lichen-covered stone wall put in place stone by stone over one hundred fifty years ago.

On the other side of the stone wall is a grass field with sprinkles of wildflowers scattered about. Step over the low stone wall: you must now look closely. Shading your eyes from the morning sun low over the mountains, your eye must search through the morning mist to see the rusty metal roof of an old tobacco barn just over the rise tucked into a hollow. 

Walk through the tall rustling grass over the rise and the aged, weathered; rough-sawn wooden walls of the tobacco barn come into view. It sits between giant hemlock trees and the sweet pink-white blossoms of mountain laurel.

Step from the bright morning sun light into the soft darkness of muted shadows of the barn interior. The essence of tobacco from a bygone era, reawakened by the morning mist, touches the senses for a fleeting moment. 

There, ghost-like in the shadowy interior, close enough to touch, is an R46.It sits pristine, at home on the thick planked wooden floor. Its elegant image pleases the eye. The R46 is waiting for its morning visit from the aging pilot.

The yearly mandatory annual inspection is ignored. The aircraft and engine logbooks have been filed away. Time has made their location a forgotten secret with the passage of time. The bright yellow ELT, long removed from the Fairchild, rests on a dusty barn shelf embraced by spider webs. 

The Ranger engine now digests the eighty-seven-octane gasoline as it was designed to use instead of ninety octane available at airports. The gas is purchased from a one-pump gas station and transferred by five-gallon gasoline cans to the Fairchilds tanks. The cans rest in a corner of the barn. Lying on top of the cans is a wooden dowel with graduated serrations, cut by a pocketknife over thirty years ago.

There isn't a mechanical part on the Fairchild the old man cannot fix, helped by his wife or, on occasion, a grandchild. 

There is no mandatory medical in the pilot's pocket. If he can get up in the morning that is good enough for him. His pilot's license lays dog-eared and worn; tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen. 

He does not participate in the mandatory semi-annual pilot's review.

And so, on this misty morning, the Ranger coughs to life, gently disturbing the silence of the valley. The old airplane carries its pilot and its antiquated instruments over the grasses as the wheel pants brush aside the wild flowers. It purrs like a kitten. 

An aged hand, now with the touch of a master, coaxes the Fairchild around and points her nose at a distant, mist-covered mountain peak. The heart of the Fairchild and the pulse of the man come together.  Rabbits, chipmunks, and all of God's creatures that share this rolling field, pause for a few brief seconds to watch the elegant lady make her way through their domain. 

Gently and without effort, she leaves her earthly bounds and lifts herself into the remoteness of the morning sky. The odd angles, braces, and bars of her landing gear now hang awkwardly as the morning mist closes behind her passage of flight. The slow rhythmic beat of her heart fades in to the expanse of the valley and becomes a soft distant echo from the past.