Sled Driver

CHAPTER VII
The Legacy
Sometimes non-flyers can't understand the affection pilots feel for their planes.
Everything we feel about the machine, we already have within ourselves. We bring
the dreams, the joy, and the life to the plane when we enter the cockpit. We learn
to feel as if we are one with the machine, and it becomes an extension of ourselves.
Because the airplane holds our mortality in its hands, we love it for returning us
safely. These feelings and the common experience we share with the airplane make
its retirement difficult, no matter what airplane is retiring or what new exciting
airplane is replacing it.
I have watched Air National Guard pilots take old Century Series fighters across
the country to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. There, on
the desert floor near the air base, they are stored in a dry environment that is kind
to these metal machines. They may be used for spare parts or resurrected later as
drones, but mostly they just sit in straight rows in the desert. Sometimes having
stopped at an air-base on a cross-country trip, I parked next to old planes I knew
were on their way to Davis-Monthan. Like me, they had stopped for fuel on their trip
across the country. Their faded paint was a clue of their imminent retirement.
Another time I stood at Davis Monthan Base Operations and watched a pilot on this
kind of ferry mission land his war-horse on a hot and windy afternoon. He slowly
taxied to the ramp, where he shut the engines down for the last time. With sadness
and reverence, he said a final goodbye in his own way and quietly left the hardened
veteran to await its tow to the boneyard. Like a metal ghost from the past, the
airplane sat alone in the quiet evening sunlight. In its frame of steel and wiring, it
held untold stories of terrifying moments and other memories of sweet victory.
Each jet I saw towed to its final desert parking spot looked proud. There, row upon
row of airframes sit like silent sentinels. A harsh sun dulls their finish and weathers
their Insignia. Watching an airplane retire is as poignant as saying good-bye to a
friend I know I will never see again.
Even though we knew the end of the SR-71 program was coming, it was no less sad
living through that time when it finally arrived. The reasons for retiring the SR-71
were many. It was too expensive to operate. Satellites could do the job. The aircraft
was getting old and newer planes were going to be to replace it. The list of reasons
went on. We who had flown her, knew she was far from ready to leave. We also knew