" "For reference, Captain," she said, "I'm 112, pounds, soaking wet." "For reference, Captain," she said, "I'm 112, pounds, soaking wet." Actually, the "cargo weight" issue was only a ploy. If I didn't particularly feel like company on a given evening, it was easier to decline a request on "weight and balance" grounds. It also aided some rather subtle gender discrimination: it was amazing how often we had room for a 130 pound woman and not a 180 pound guy. For Alma, however the weight and balance problem was resolved when she first asked for the ride: she had mischievous blue eyes, a button nose, and pert breasts, not well-contained by a Harley-Davidson T-Shirt. I had heard from one of the instructors that she was a serious, bright student with the goal -- and apparently the talent -- to achieve an airline career. At the 'phone, I checked the weather. The short hop from Opa Locka to Miami was no sweat. It was "VFR" -- the initials for "visual flight rules," that permitted flying when the visibility was greater than 3 miles and the cloud ceiling greater than 1000 feet. The rest of the route was another story, however. Atlanta was reporting a 500 foot broken ceiling, sky obscured, visibility of two miles, forecast to drop to 200 feet and a half-mile in rain and fog. The enroute conditions were free of thunderstorms, but ceilings along the route were low, typically 300-1000 feet. The ride would be smooth, but definitely "IFR" -- Instrument Flight Rules --requiring a suitably instrumented airplane and a pilot holding the coveted "instrument rating -- which I had acquired from eight-months of flying with a hood over my head, alongside a sadistic instructor who would simulate every sort of system failure known to man. I filed our flight plan for Atlanta, with Montgomery, Alabama as a weather alternate, gathered my maps -- "charts" in pilot lingo, and returned to the lounge to tell Alma she was welcome. I loaded Alma in the Travelair's right seat, handed her the checklist and fired-up the two engines. We, used the challenge and response system familiar to both of us: "Fuel on mains." "Check." "Boost pumps on." "Check." "Gyro set. |