I thought it a fitting end to a beautiful beginning. As I drove up the road to the hilltop airport in Beaver Dams, I recollected the January evening a year and a half ago that Dave and I first got in an airplane together. It had been a dull gray winter's day, and just after the sunset, the full moon rose and the low clouds broke up enough to climb above them.

We spent his first flying lesson between bright stars and an eerie moonlit undercast. Perhaps he thought that this sort of thing happens all the time, but I was aware that such sights are to be seen only once in hundreds of hours. He was awestruck, but I was merely grateful for yet another wondrous sight viewed from the front seat of an airplane.

That was the beginning though, and now we were at the end. It was early on a July morning, and the full moon was getting low in the west, and the rising sun was just moving clear of the horizon in the east. A year and a half ago we had started out in the cold darkness from the grass strip at Dundee, but now our final meeting was taking place on a summer morning as the sun was prying its way into the sleepy valley below us.

Dave flew steadily that first winter, and by the time that longer days brought the warm weather, he had a feel for crosswinds and night flight that belied the hours in his logbook. I was sure that he would beat the odds and finish up in less than a year, but like most everyone, he became distracted and lesson schedules were reduced to fits and starts. Fall, Winter, and Spring were frustrating to both of us, until he made a commitment to finish it up.

Through an unusual series of events, his flight test was scheduled for last Saturday, at 8AM, in Selinsgrove, PA. An 8AM arrival means roughly a 6:30 takeoff, and coming from his home in Prattsburg, he had to leave home at 5:45... after getting a weather briefing and planning his course to Selinsgrove and also planning the flight for the flight test. He was up at 4:30. We had moved the plane from Elmira to a hilltop airport because of the possibility of thick fog in the valley early in the morning.

This was his flight, not mine, and he was almost ready to leave when I arrived. I just stopped by to wish him bon voyage. We spoke briefly, and he got in the plane. He started it, warmed it, checked it out, and was soon rolling down the wet grassy runway. The engine sounded smooth and strong as the plane accelerated and disappeared beyond the high ground at the middle of the runway.

Shortly it reappeared, climbing straight and true, then smoothly turning to the south, a speck in the pale blue sky, growing smaller. I thought of what he was thinking, doing, seeing, and hearing as he climbed away. Just a little bit too, I was admiring another piece of my handiwork.

We parted company again later that day, at the same airport. There were the usual congratulations and thank-yous, and some reminisces. At the end, there was the familiar "see ya", but from my experience, I knew that this time was different. We will always be friends, but instead of meeting several times a week, it may now be several times a year. He has moved on, he is now his own instructor, and he can do his own things.

So Dave, congratulations.... and "see ya".

To contact Bob Tilden, send an e-mail.