Pushing Planes

  

  In January of 1981 I spent 3 weeks on San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.  It was a course on Bahamian geology offered by my advisor during the month long January mini term also known as "J-term".  Hartwick offered one class during January.  It made for interesting opportunities for study that didn't cut into your regular course work.    

  We'd left Hartwick at about 3:00 am and travelled through New York, to Miami where we boarded a DC-3 twin engine aircraft for the trip to the island.  In fact, there were two of planes, as our group of geologists was accompanied by biologists and other researchers conducting their own research in a place far warmer then mid-state New York in January.  

  The planes arrived on the island about mid-afternoon.  At the time, the airfield was fairly rugged, with no lights and a small shed that served as the home for the Customs officials that greeted us when we arrived.  Needless to say, it took some time for our hosts to process all the arriving passengers.  

  As the sun began to sink in to the west the pilots of these two DC-3's began to make preparations to return to the US mainland.  They had to leave before dark.  There was only one problem.  The way the two aircraft were parked prohibited the pilots from using their engines to maneuver the aircraft out of the parking area and onto the taxiway under their own power.  I'm sure this had happened before and apparently wasn't a problem.  The pilots had large supply of young, energetic, if somewhat tired students at their disposal.

  They positioned us at a number of places along the wheels and other structurally sound surfaces and told us to push.  With about 20 of us in various places on the aircraft, we pushed the DC-3 into a position where the pilots could safely start the planes and head home.  I remember begin amazed that we could move the plane, and that we would even need to do such a thing.  I marked it up to one of the many incredible experiences of that trip.  But before it left I captured a picture of the setting sun behind the plane.  One of my favorite pictures from that trip, and one of the few that has survived over the years.

  Fast forward 32 years...

  Part of my job at the USGS is Aviation Safety.  So it made sense recently when I was asked to help with the collection of lidar data.  Lidar is an aircraft based laser ranging system that measures either land elevation or water depth using a laser to determine the distance from the aircraft to the target of interest.  My familiarity with the aircraft safety rules and my experience from years of photography flights had put me in a position to be helpful to the crew conducting the surveys.

  We had flown from St Petersburg to Crocker Reef, off Islamorada in the Florida Keys.  We had been flying about 6 hours when we landed at Marathon to meet colleagues with NOAA and to refuel.  The general aviation services facility at the airport in Marathon had closed at 6 pm, about an hour before we got there, but they had a self service pump for fuel.  Wayne pulled our plane up to the pump, nose in, so he would be able to reach both wing tanks with the hose.  One of the NOAA pilots, Jeff, met us at the airport.  

  Refueling took about 15 minutes, but as Wayne was finishing, another aircraft landed and pulled up to wait their turn at the pump. The problem was our plane wasn't in a position to move away from the pump under it's own power.  No problem.  We'd push it.  

  Wayne and Jeff told me where to stand then the three of us started pushing.  The aircraft, a Cessna 310, is a lot smaller then a DC-3, yet it was surprisingly easy to move, even for only three of us.  As the sun set, we easily moved the plane across the tarmac to a parking space between two other aircraft tied down for the night.  And like before, I got out my camera afterward and snapped a picture so very reminiscent of that day 32 years before.  

  To those who fly small planes this would not seem like such an unusual event.  I've seen it happen at least one more time since then.  But to me, a layman in the field of aviation, to now count in my experience twice pushing planes around an airfield is a once, well, now twice in a lifetime experience.