Soaring – A True Tall Tale

Growing up a skinny kid with a cowlick, glasses, and buck teeth, my hero was John Wayne. I dreamed of one day leading a cavalry charge, facing down gunslingers, or soaring through the skies. Instead, I managed to fall off a horse, bag a rabbit on an illegal night-time hunting trip, and squeeze into the last middle seat in economy class. Not exactly Rooster Cogburn material. That’s alright. One can dream.

I loved John Wayne movies, but maybe the most famous phrase to come out of one wasn’t spoken by the Duke himself. In the 1942 B-movie The Flying Tigers, one of the brash pilots under Wayne’s command is desperately nursing his fighter back to base after it’s torn apart by Japanese fire somewhere over China. Back at headquarters in Rangoon, the commander awaits word of the flyer’s fate. Finally, the radio crackles with the news. He’s coming home on a “wing and a prayer.” Now, everybody knows what that means: making the most out of what you got – with the grace of God.

I have a friend I’ve known for 30 years. His name is Phil Phillips. About the time I met him, he took a trip, literally on a wing and a prayer. October 6. Dawn broke with fair skies and cool temperatures. A steady breeze of 10 to 15 mph scudded a few clouds high overhead. Phil climbed into his flying machine – essentially a 49-foot-long wing with a cramped place to sit. No motor. No navigator. No help except from the plane that towed him to soaring altitude. When they released the rope, he was on his own, three thousand feet above the ground.   

Before he took off, Phil declared his intention to make it to Miller Airfield, a little grass strip in Keyser, West Virginia, 541.82 miles from his starting point. A tiny clearing in a small town. Nobody in the U.S. had ever made a flight that long unassisted by an engine to a pre-declared destination. As he rose in the morning sunlight, the ground fell away as easily as an autumn leaf and all the noise of the world fell away with it. He found the first of many updrafts alongside Lookout Mountain. It boosted him even higher to the heavens. I imagine no one else in the world could possibly understand the peace and exhilaration of soaring over mountain ridges supported by nothing but the invisible hand of God.

What does it take to trust your future to the unseen? A wing and a prayer? Maybe a lot of skill. Maybe a lot of experience. Maybe a whole lot of faith. There he was, a mile high with nothing below him but a few hundred pounds of fiberglass reinforced plastic equipped with a flex wing designed to twist with the wind, then release its energy forward. On this day, forward meant crossing five states, constantly searching for either the next updraft to keep him aloft or the next empty field where he could dodge the cows – just in case. It was afternoon when Miller Field came into view. He touched down right where he said he would. For the feat, the Soaring Society of America presented Ira (Phil) Phillips, Jr. with the Lewin B. Barringer Memorial Trophy for 1991.

That flight wasn’t even the longest flight Phil ever made in a glider. In 1994, he flew from Gadsden, Alabama, to Tyrone, Pennsylvania, a distance of 630.5 miles. It would have been even farther had not early morning delays and late afternoon snow showers forced him down.  His ambition was to fly all the way to Vermont. As it was, that flight still stands as the longest glider flight out of Alabama.

In my opinion, neither the 1991 trophy nor the 1994 flight were the most important accomplishments of Phil’s life. He has successfully steered his oil company, Ira Phillips, Inc. for 30 years. He and his devoted wife Harriet have a family who loves them and many friends who respect and admire them. I am grateful to count myself as one.

Phil says there are liars and then there are fliars, misspelling intended. Tall tales come easily when you’ve peered down on mountains from the solitude of clouds. Still, every good embellished story is woven around a kernel of truth. I’m eager to hear some of Phil’s tall tales. But as for the ones I tell today, they are all truth.

Even now, Phil aims for the sky and delights in sharing his love of flying and storytelling. His days of soaring among the clouds are over because of the devastating effects of Parkinson’s and the painful spine problems that have plagued him for several years. Yet here he is, busy working on another flying machine – a small-engine powered single seat lightweight that will transport the friend helping him build it into the skies.

So, what does it take to trust your future to the unseen? None of us know what’s over the next ridge. The best we can do is follow our passions in life and love. It may take a while, but if we’re fortunate, we find them. And if we keep moving forward, maybe one day we too can soar.

On a wing and a prayer.