Night Silent

Aviation radio chatter: in the glider, I listen to every word. Well, that’s not entirely true. When I’m low and struggling and need absolute focus on the stick to save the flight, I’ll turn the radio to zero. But the rest of the flight, I’m listening for anything I can hear about your flight that might make my flight successful. I hear a pilot turn around at Mt. Grant early in the afternoon and I infer the thunderstorms that were expected in the desert arrived early. I should continue to work the mountains.

So, anything superfluous is a distraction, a tax on my concentration. “Hey Lou, this is Dirk, I’m over Mt. Siegel…where are you? Oh, I was just there a few minutes ago. Might go back there shortly. Or maybe not.” I’d pay good money for a radio that had selective squelch based on tail number.

Powered flight is different. Lots of talk; most of it I don’t actually hear. ATC talking to any of dozens of other pilots. Then the controller calls my numbers and somehow, like a parent who picks out his own kid’s cry from the pack, my attention comes forth. How that works, I don’t know.

I love a (mostly) quiet radio when soaring.

But under power, a quiet radio is not typical. Ask any pilot how he or she feels about things that are out of the normal. Even a little bit.

The quiet radio, to play with the words, is disquieting.

At least at first.

Last night I’m in the dark, northbound over the Temblor Range. The San Joaquin Valley is blanketed with fog. East of that: a complete void, as if the Sierras no longer exist. To the west, the lights of Santa Barbara, and the very last of astronomical twilight. Below me, an occasional car headlight, lonesome on a road somewhere north of Soda Lake.

Not much on the radio.

Officially, I’m on with ATC so they can alert me to traffic. As if you could miss anyone in this darkness. I see one guy coming my way and he’s still 50 miles out. At least for tonight, his strobe is over-engineered. 10 minutes later, the controller calls me: “Traffic, 11 o-clock, 5 miles, a Barron” “Thank you. I’ve got him,” I respond.

After the Barron zipped southbound, the radio went silent. Mile after mile. After mile.

My headset is silent.

I key the mic, ask the controller for a radio check. Not that I think my radio has failed. But maybe I’ve flown past his transmitter range. Absent any talk, there’s not the usual warning as his transmission gets weaker and weaker until he hands me off to the guy working the next sector.

But my controller comes right back. His voice is crisp. The signal is strong and as clear as this night’s sky. “I’ve got you. Just…you’re the only one out there tonight.”

He knew why I asked. He knew that the quiet was disquieting. Bless him and the job he does.

Reassured, I settle in. And why not. It’s so dark now that the stars above and the few lights below make mirrors of each other, and if I’m the only one out here to enjoy this view, by God, I’ll not let it go missed.

I fly. I look. I check the attitude. The airplane’s, and my own. Both are as they should be.

Silent Night.

The density of lights is picking up as I come upon Paso Robles and then the Salinas Valley, with its communities every dozen miles.

I pull the stick hard right and fly a tight, clockwise circle. I do it to enjoy the contrast as my view transitions from the lights ahead, to impossible darkness, and back again.

My friend, watching me on his radar, calls: “hey, you made a turn. Everything good?”

He knows this is not typical behavior, and he’s looking out for me.

“Yeah, I tell him. There was some stuff just too pretty to fly straight past.” He doesn’t say anything back, just clicks the microphone. Shorthand for “I get it.”

It will be the only transmission on the frequency for the rest of the flight, until I am just shy of home.

Wherever he was, he too was sitting in a darkened environment. Watching his screen with only my trace.

I signed off and thanked him for keeping me company. It was just right to have him there, in the quiet. Nothing superfluous.