The Power of Testimony

’TIL WE MEET AGAIN
Our instructors would send us out in our planes alone—​
with no instructor, no partner, and no radio. We had just
a parachute and a whole lot of trust. And while sometimes
the instructors would be flying nearby, they often just told
us to head out five or ten miles and get to work. We had
to learn how to put the plane into a spin and, more important,
how to get out of it at just the right time. There were
loops to master and turns to perfect—​ the tools we would
rely on in combat. We had to learn how to control the
plane the way we would control a fishing rod: by placing it
exactly where we wanted it every time.
Being able to stall the plane successfully was essential.
By turning on the carburetor heat, we could keep the
engine running while at the same time stopping the propellers
to reduce speed. That meant we could put the plane
into a spin to avoid enemy fire. It also meant that when we
were trying to land, if we didn’t manage to hook the plane
onto the cable that ran across the flight deck, we could kick
the propellers back to life and fly off again before making
another attempt.
One day when I was alone in the skies above Washington
State, I was practicing going from a stall into a spin. It was
a move I’d carried out many times before, and since it was
a clear day with good weather, I really had no excuse for
doing something as foolish as forgetting to turn on the
carburetor heat before disengaging the propellers. Yet that’s
exactly what I did. Within seconds the engine stopped,
leaving a strange silence that iced through the cockpit.
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