Disorientation

"The are old pilots

And there are bold pilots

But there are no old, bold pilots"

-Col. Patrick Bowman, USAF

"Slow down and get there faster"

-Lt.Col. Bush Carlson, USAF

Sitting here on the porch at 407, on my second cup of coffee.

The weather's not looking too bad right now, but it's forecast to get worse, just in time for my flight to Montgomery in the Mighty Columbia after lunch.

I spent over five hours at the controls yesterday. When I arrived at the FBO at KELM it was 23 degrees and everything was covered in a thick frost. The forecast called for ice all the way up to 26,000 feet, which worried me a bit but there were no clouds in the sky at that point, so the only hazard was the very real but relatively rare specter of clear-air icing.

I had the chance to ponder all this in the cold with the line tech who'd been dispatched to let me into the FBO for my flight, but hadn't been given a key. So the two of us shivered outside making small talk while we waited for a grown-up to arrive.

The flight was, as it turned out, uneventful. Once at cruise altitude I pulled out my computer and started reading the thousand pages or so of record for this oral argument tomorrow, trying to get my arms around the issues after having one of my partners write the briefs, then raise the white feather when it came time to gird up his loins and do rhetorical battle with an appellate court panel that would likely show up loaded for bear. So the task fell back to me.

My usual fuel stop brought me to Spartanburg, where I arrived just as a tree trimming service dropped a branch across the main power line for their facility, leaving us in darkness and rendering the cute girl in the Jesus shirt behind the counter in the snack bar unable to sell me a hot dog at ten in the morning. Probably just as well.

All of these things compounded to bring me into the pattern at ECP well behind schedule for my first appointment. Then my friends at Tyndall approach control compounded the problem by declaring the traffic pattern there saturated, and sending me on a scenic tour over the port and the beach before allowing me to take my place in line to land.

So it was asses and elbows getting to the office, where my 12:30 appointment had arrived early and were eating the lunch I'd ordered us. I dashed in as the strategy session that brought us together had already begun in earnest, and never quite caught up. One of the participants was a 71-year-old lawyer, happily immersed in the task of figuring out procedural booby traps to set for the hearing we all would attend in a few weeks. It makes me feel pretty puny, complaining that I'm old and tired and ready to slow down a little. This person has a net worth probably a dozen times ours, and still does this stuff every day, all day, because it's fun. That ship sailed for me a long time ago, to the extent it was ever in port.

The rest of the day went much the same, ending with me working alone in darkness in the office, trying feverishly to make the most of my day-and-a-half here before heading to my federal appeal adventure this afternoon, then back into the plane to pick through the ice to get back to Corning by suppertime tomorrow, inshallah. I told P the other day that I needed to do a better job of managing these runs back-and-forth, because one day I'm going to be threading thunderstorms in the dark or trying to gauge the danger of the ice forming on the wings and my luck's going to run out. Thirty-eight plus years is a long time at the controls. One bad day is all it'll take.

Today's short flight, all of maybe forty minutes, has a few added stressors that I would've flagged back in my days as a flight safety officer. I'm really tired, having barely slept last night. I did that to myself, I'm afraid; after lunch yesterday I felt myself craving a nap, and fought back with a big mug of afternoon coffee. That always ends the same way, with me falling easily asleep at nine only to bolt upright at 1:30 in the morning and never make it back into any sort of slumber.

Add to that some crappy weather, with ice forecast even down here because of some weirdness in the upper levels, a flight into an unfamiliar field, a major distraction in tomorrow's hearing, and an actual need to arrive at my destination regardless of what challenges interpose themselves along the way. I need to pay attention, and be extra careful on this short hop.

Plus, and I'm not any more superstitious than the next guy, there's this sort of premonition of doom this morning. I probably know what that's about--we have by far the tougher argument tomorrow in court, and I've seen these federal appellate judges gut lawyers who had the temerity to advance wobbly arguments in that august chamber. I just need to remember it's not personal. And hey, maybe they'll go easy on the old guy (although one of my judges has been on the bench for around thirty years, after several years in practice, so I won't be the most wizened lawyer in the room by any stretch).

Time to go pull myself together and start the day. Steph, who never seems to quite understand what I do for a living, set two back-to-back Zoom hearings this morning, further cutting into my precious prep time for tomorrow. She also let a new client book an in-person meeting because he's "old school, carries a flip phone, and wants to meet in person." Of course. Where do I find these people? Where do they find me?

Anyway, here we go. Selah.