Olaf's First Flight
October 22, 1990
Olaf Borgström is a little boy who loves airplanes. He’ll spend hours sailing gliders; or folding paper airplanes, adjusting control surfaces to make them do loops or rolls, or to just fly straight and far. And when he’s not doing that, he’ll be reading books about airplanes.
Eventually he got me involved, and together we’ve been building and flying balsa wood models with rubber-band powered propellers. Some flew pretty well. One would take off from a sidewalk, fly over a fence, and land high up in a neighbor’s tree. Inevitably they’d crash. We’d glue them back together and fly them again, and then crash them again. Our home is full of airplanes and broken airplanes.
One afternoon Henry Ilves, who has a plane out at Fullerton Airport, invited me to bring Olaf and come along for a ride. I dashed off to get him, but not without some misgivings. It’s one thing to stand with both feet on the ground and admire airplanes, read books about them, or even fly models—but riding in a full-scale light airplane could be a traumatic experience for a little 9-year-old. Maybe I should wait till Olaf got a bit older.
"You won’t be scared, will you?" I asked him on the way to Henry’s office.
"No, I won’t," he replied, and asked me in turn, "Will you, Pa?"
"I’ll try not to be afraid," I smiled in an attempt to relate to him at his age level, and clasped his hand, "We’ll both be brave, won’t we?"
Olaf nodded and said, "I won’t chicken out."
We found Henry in his office. He’s an engineer in his fifties; he’s been flying for some 15 years now. And Olaf poured out the questions, "On your airplane is the rudder controlled by foot-pedals?"
"Yes," Henry replied, "That’s the way it is on all aircraft."
"What about the ailerons? Do you move them with a joy-stick? Or does your plane have something else?"
"Something else. It looks a bit like a wheel, but works the same as a joy-stick. It’s called a yoke," Henry explained and added, "You’ll see when we get to the airport."
Henry Ilves is a rather quiet person who generally doesn’t say much; he’s the archetype of the silent data-oriented engineer; he didn’t seem like a type who could relate well to children, but on the way to the airport he and Olaf got into a good discussion on unique and innovative aircraft designs.
We entered the airport and drove up to Henry’s plane, a Piper Comanche. It’s a single engined low winged monoplane which can seat 5 people and cruise at around 200 mph.
Olaf inspected the plane, looking for all the things he believed a full scale airplane was supposed to have. He studied the wing and found the ailerons. "But where?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face, "Where are the spoilers?"
Spoilers are an air-brake, they can slow a plane down when diving or when coming in for a landing. Olaf firmly believed that every self-respecting airplane must have them; he had once even designed and build an ingeniously functioning but totally impractical automatic spoiler for one of his models. This invention had indeed worked: but it was only with the greatest of difficulty that I’d finally managed to convince him that his invention worked so well that it would prevent our glider from ever flying at all.
And now Henry had to tell Olaf that this plane didn’t have spoilers; it used flaps. But if Olaf was disappointed, he didn’t show it, he was at last in the real world of full scale aircraft.
The cockpit had dual controls for a pilot and a copilot who would sit side by side. Olaf asked, "Can I sit in the copilot’s seat?"
Henry assented, and found some pillows for him to sit on so as to bring him up high enough to see out the windscreen. I took the seat directly behind Olaf.
We fastened our safety belts. The engine came to life, and we put on microphone headsets. Through these we talked to each other, and also heard instructions from the control tower as we moved down the taxiway to get in position for take off.
As we sat there waiting for take-off, Henry performed the pre-flight run-up; he changed the pitch of the propeller and there was a tremendous change in the sound of the engine as he did this. It sounded a bit like shifting gears in a car.
The 3 of us sat cramped close together in this small plane; but the loud engine and the microphone headsets isolated us each into a separate world and the voices of Henry and Olaf seemed no closer or farther from me than the voice of the person in the control tower who was giving us instructions.
Permission for take-off came. We roared off down the runway and then I saw the ground dropping out from beneath us. Airborne and climbing fast, I looked down and suddenly remembered that I was scared of high places. We climbed still higher into the sky, and then banked into a turn. Our plane stood on one wing, and I looked out the window and saw the ground that should have been below me was now beside me—a thousand feet down. It was a terrifying but fascinating sight, and it was impossible not to look; after each glance I would close my eyes, suck in a deep breath, and think to myself: Why couldn’t Olaf be a normal kid and take up some down to earth hobby like stamp collecting?
At last the plane found its course and leveled off; and I remembered saying to Olaf less than an hour earlier, "You won’t be scared? will you?" But now up here in the sky, I was the scared one! Meanwhile, I heard Olaf’s voice in the headset, commenting and asking questions as usual, and obviously enjoying himself tremendously.
"We’re climbing at 120 mph," Henry announced, and added that we were at 2,000 feet. Henry pointed to the instruments which gave this information. There was a confusing array of them and they all looked alike. I looked out the window and it was a long way down.
We’d taken off towards the west, and having turned, we were now heading east, towards the Santa Ana Mountains and Corona. "3,000 feet," Henry announced, then, "4,000 feet." Soon we reached 5,000. Below to the left was the 91 freeway, clogged with late afternoon rush hour traffic and turned into one long parking lot. We flew over at 125 mph.
The plane began to bounce slightly as we crossed the mountains—air turbulence, caused by air currents rising up the mountain side, Henry explained.
Soon we were over Corona, and Henry said to Olaf, "In a minute I’ll give you the controls." First he wanted to climb another 500 feet, up to 5,500, which was the proper altitude for our direction of flight.
Henry was probably giving Olaf this brief notice to give him a moment to prepare himself mentally to take over, or, to just say "No", if he didn’t feel up to it. It was also a time, or perhaps even an invitation for me to exercise a veto, if I so chose.
I was already very scared, simply for being this high up off the ground, and now... But terrified though I was, I also knew very well that my fears were basically irrational. Moreover, I had confidence in Olaf; it was his decision. If he wanted to try his hand at flying this plane, then I would sit right behind him and go along for the ride. That, I felt, is part of being a father.
Olaf said nothing, I said nothing, and Henry said nothing. We climbed those last 500 feet in screaming silence; only the engine spoke, with its loud steady roar.
Then, "The plan’s yours," and without another word, Henry folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t bother to tell Olaf what to push or pull. Henry is a man of few words.
Olaf reached out his hands to the yoke in front of him, and Henry said, "Head for Lake Elsinore," and pointed it out, at about 3 o’clock to the right of us.
"I thought I was going to crash," Olaf told me afterwards. This was a very reasonable thought: his model airplanes often had crashed, and broken. But he calmly grasped the yoke and moved it slowly and carefully. The plane began to bank.
"A little more," said Henry; and Olaf steepened the angle of bank until the plane was standing on one wing, and the ground was once again beside me as I glanced out the window. Then I looked at Henry; was he doing this? No. Henry had his arms folded across his chest; Olaf was flying the plane, banking it, standing it on its wing.
Yes, I was scared, but it wasn’t the same scared feeling I’d been experiencing till this moment. This was suddenly a very different scared feeling; it was like I was watching the climax of a very intense action movie. I sat there clenching my fists till my knuckles turned white with that desperate "can-he-do-it?" feeling of anxiety and apprehension. But unlike in the movies, there was really no guarantee of a happy ending—the script for this scene was still being written. After all, we were still standing on one wing.
The plane was turning and kept turning for what seemed like a terribly long time until Olaf was at last satisfied that he had the proper course and leveled off. I let out a very deep sigh of relief and closed my eyes for a moment.
"We’ve lost altitude," Henry said, pointing to the altimeter, "Bring it back up to 5,500 feet."
Olaf pulled back on the yoke and we began to climb, but very slowly. Too slowly, apparently. It was dangerous to be outside of our proper air space, and Henry briefly took over the controls and brought us back to the required altitude. Then he returned the controls to Olaf.
We were now heading south, parallel to the Santa Ana Mountains which were slightly below and to the right of us. From the air they were fascinating and beautiful. Then at about 2 o’clock there appeared some exotic peaks with a mysterious valley nestled in between the them—a Shangri-La? Olaf was admiring it too, "Can I go over there?" he asked.
But Henry said no. We could encounter air turbulence, perhaps even dangerous down drafts. And he directed Olaf to turn the other way. We were off course and Lake Elsinore was now at about 10 o’clock.
Again Olaf banked, and now with Lake Elsinore clearly visible, he easily aimed the plane in that direction. Once again, we lost altitude. But this time Olaf was able to bring us back up to where we were supposed to be, at 5,500 feet.
Olaf was flying the plane and making it go where he wanted it to go. Half an hour earlier that afternoon he’d been a little 9-year-old boy; but the young man at the controls of this airplane was no longer a small child.
Later that evening, back at home, Olaf said to me, "Pa, I always knew that some day I was going to take you up in a plane that I was flying. But I never thought the day would come this soon."
Daniel Borgström
October 1990
Olaf Borgström is a little boy who loves airplanes. He’ll spend hours sailing gliders; or folding paper airplanes, adjusting control surfaces to make them do loops or rolls, or to just fly straight and far. And when he’s not doing that, he’ll be reading books about airplanes.
Eventually he got me involved, and together we’ve been building and flying balsa wood models with rubber-band powered propellers. Some flew pretty well. One would take off from a sidewalk, fly over a fence, and land high up in a neighbor’s tree. Inevitably they’d crash. We’d glue them back together and fly them again, and then crash them again. Our home is full of airplanes and broken airplanes.
One afternoon Henry Ilves, who has a plane out at Fullerton Airport, invited me to bring Olaf and come along for a ride. I dashed off to get him, but not without some misgivings. It’s one thing to stand with both feet on the ground and admire airplanes, read books about them, or even fly models—but riding in a full-scale light airplane could be a traumatic experience for a little 9-year-old. Maybe I should wait till Olaf got a bit older.
"You won’t be scared, will you?" I asked him on the way to Henry’s office.
"No, I won’t," he replied, and asked me in turn, "Will you, Pa?"
"I’ll try not to be afraid," I smiled in an attempt to relate to him at his age level, and clasped his hand, "We’ll both be brave, won’t we?"
Olaf nodded and said, "I won’t chicken out."
We found Henry in his office. He’s an engineer in his fifties; he’s been flying for some 15 years now. And Olaf poured out the questions, "On your airplane is the rudder controlled by foot-pedals?"
"Yes," Henry replied, "That’s the way it is on all aircraft."
"What about the ailerons? Do you move them with a joy-stick? Or does your plane have something else?"
"Something else. It looks a bit like a wheel, but works the same as a joy-stick. It’s called a yoke," Henry explained and added, "You’ll see when we get to the airport."
Henry Ilves is a rather quiet person who generally doesn’t say much; he’s the archetype of the silent data-oriented engineer; he didn’t seem like a type who could relate well to children, but on the way to the airport he and Olaf got into a good discussion on unique and innovative aircraft designs.
We entered the airport and drove up to Henry’s plane, a Piper Comanche. It’s a single engined low winged monoplane which can seat 5 people and cruise at around 200 mph.
Olaf inspected the plane, looking for all the things he believed a full scale airplane was supposed to have. He studied the wing and found the ailerons. "But where?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face, "Where are the spoilers?"
Spoilers are an air-brake, they can slow a plane down when diving or when coming in for a landing. Olaf firmly believed that every self-respecting airplane must have them; he had once even designed and build an ingeniously functioning but totally impractical automatic spoiler for one of his models. This invention had indeed worked: but it was only with the greatest of difficulty that I’d finally managed to convince him that his invention worked so well that it would prevent our glider from ever flying at all.
And now Henry had to tell Olaf that this plane didn’t have spoilers; it used flaps. But if Olaf was disappointed, he didn’t show it, he was at last in the real world of full scale aircraft.
The cockpit had dual controls for a pilot and a copilot who would sit side by side. Olaf asked, "Can I sit in the copilot’s seat?"
Henry assented, and found some pillows for him to sit on so as to bring him up high enough to see out the windscreen. I took the seat directly behind Olaf.
We fastened our safety belts. The engine came to life, and we put on microphone headsets. Through these we talked to each other, and also heard instructions from the control tower as we moved down the taxiway to get in position for take off.
As we sat there waiting for take-off, Henry performed the pre-flight run-up; he changed the pitch of the propeller and there was a tremendous change in the sound of the engine as he did this. It sounded a bit like shifting gears in a car.
The 3 of us sat cramped close together in this small plane; but the loud engine and the microphone headsets isolated us each into a separate world and the voices of Henry and Olaf seemed no closer or farther from me than the voice of the person in the control tower who was giving us instructions.
Permission for take-off came. We roared off down the runway and then I saw the ground dropping out from beneath us. Airborne and climbing fast, I looked down and suddenly remembered that I was scared of high places. We climbed still higher into the sky, and then banked into a turn. Our plane stood on one wing, and I looked out the window and saw the ground that should have been below me was now beside me—a thousand feet down. It was a terrifying but fascinating sight, and it was impossible not to look; after each glance I would close my eyes, suck in a deep breath, and think to myself: Why couldn’t Olaf be a normal kid and take up some down to earth hobby like stamp collecting?
At last the plane found its course and leveled off; and I remembered saying to Olaf less than an hour earlier, "You won’t be scared? will you?" But now up here in the sky, I was the scared one! Meanwhile, I heard Olaf’s voice in the headset, commenting and asking questions as usual, and obviously enjoying himself tremendously.
"We’re climbing at 120 mph," Henry announced, and added that we were at 2,000 feet. Henry pointed to the instruments which gave this information. There was a confusing array of them and they all looked alike. I looked out the window and it was a long way down.
We’d taken off towards the west, and having turned, we were now heading east, towards the Santa Ana Mountains and Corona. "3,000 feet," Henry announced, then, "4,000 feet." Soon we reached 5,000. Below to the left was the 91 freeway, clogged with late afternoon rush hour traffic and turned into one long parking lot. We flew over at 125 mph.
The plane began to bounce slightly as we crossed the mountains—air turbulence, caused by air currents rising up the mountain side, Henry explained.
Soon we were over Corona, and Henry said to Olaf, "In a minute I’ll give you the controls." First he wanted to climb another 500 feet, up to 5,500, which was the proper altitude for our direction of flight.
Henry was probably giving Olaf this brief notice to give him a moment to prepare himself mentally to take over, or, to just say "No", if he didn’t feel up to it. It was also a time, or perhaps even an invitation for me to exercise a veto, if I so chose.
I was already very scared, simply for being this high up off the ground, and now... But terrified though I was, I also knew very well that my fears were basically irrational. Moreover, I had confidence in Olaf; it was his decision. If he wanted to try his hand at flying this plane, then I would sit right behind him and go along for the ride. That, I felt, is part of being a father.
Olaf said nothing, I said nothing, and Henry said nothing. We climbed those last 500 feet in screaming silence; only the engine spoke, with its loud steady roar.
Then, "The plan’s yours," and without another word, Henry folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t bother to tell Olaf what to push or pull. Henry is a man of few words.
Olaf reached out his hands to the yoke in front of him, and Henry said, "Head for Lake Elsinore," and pointed it out, at about 3 o’clock to the right of us.
"I thought I was going to crash," Olaf told me afterwards. This was a very reasonable thought: his model airplanes often had crashed, and broken. But he calmly grasped the yoke and moved it slowly and carefully. The plane began to bank.
"A little more," said Henry; and Olaf steepened the angle of bank until the plane was standing on one wing, and the ground was once again beside me as I glanced out the window. Then I looked at Henry; was he doing this? No. Henry had his arms folded across his chest; Olaf was flying the plane, banking it, standing it on its wing.
Yes, I was scared, but it wasn’t the same scared feeling I’d been experiencing till this moment. This was suddenly a very different scared feeling; it was like I was watching the climax of a very intense action movie. I sat there clenching my fists till my knuckles turned white with that desperate "can-he-do-it?" feeling of anxiety and apprehension. But unlike in the movies, there was really no guarantee of a happy ending—the script for this scene was still being written. After all, we were still standing on one wing.
The plane was turning and kept turning for what seemed like a terribly long time until Olaf was at last satisfied that he had the proper course and leveled off. I let out a very deep sigh of relief and closed my eyes for a moment.
"We’ve lost altitude," Henry said, pointing to the altimeter, "Bring it back up to 5,500 feet."
Olaf pulled back on the yoke and we began to climb, but very slowly. Too slowly, apparently. It was dangerous to be outside of our proper air space, and Henry briefly took over the controls and brought us back to the required altitude. Then he returned the controls to Olaf.
We were now heading south, parallel to the Santa Ana Mountains which were slightly below and to the right of us. From the air they were fascinating and beautiful. Then at about 2 o’clock there appeared some exotic peaks with a mysterious valley nestled in between the them—a Shangri-La? Olaf was admiring it too, "Can I go over there?" he asked.
But Henry said no. We could encounter air turbulence, perhaps even dangerous down drafts. And he directed Olaf to turn the other way. We were off course and Lake Elsinore was now at about 10 o’clock.
Again Olaf banked, and now with Lake Elsinore clearly visible, he easily aimed the plane in that direction. Once again, we lost altitude. But this time Olaf was able to bring us back up to where we were supposed to be, at 5,500 feet.
Olaf was flying the plane and making it go where he wanted it to go. Half an hour earlier that afternoon he’d been a little 9-year-old boy; but the young man at the controls of this airplane was no longer a small child.
Later that evening, back at home, Olaf said to me, "Pa, I always knew that some day I was going to take you up in a plane that I was flying. But I never thought the day would come this soon."
Daniel Borgström
October 1990
