I am a 2,000-hour private pilot with an instrument rating and a tailwheel endorsement, but the night I nearly flew into a mountain, none of that experience mattered as much as a single blue button on my panel.
Aviation has been in my blood since childhood. My father’s first job out of engineering school in 1966 was as a wind tunnel engineer working directly for Igor Sikorsky, designing
helicopters in Connecticut.
If you’re not already a subscriber, what are you waiting for? Subscribe today to get the issue as soon as it is released in either Print or Digital formats.
As a kid I built and crashed more model airplanes than I could count. But I came to actual flying later in life, at age 40, in the right seat of an Embraer Phenom 100 that my company used for business trips around the United States.
Our corporate pilot served as my CFI, and together we logged more than 500 hours of instrument instruction under Part 91. That gave me decent ATC skills and solid buttonology, but I knew I lacked real stick-and-rudder ability. So I adapted an Air Force training curriculum to civilian use and spent 200 hours in a Short Brothers Tucano—a former Royal Air Force trainer—with a wonderful former F/A-18 Marine instructor pilot. The Tucano taught me upset recovery, energy management, and the humility that comes from being upside down with the wrong inputs.
- READ MORE: Pilot Executes the ‘Impossible Turn’
- READ MORE: Pilot Peril: ‘Kenny’s Upside Down!’ the Voice Crackled Back
Even so, I still didn’t have my private pilot certificate. I eventually earned it in a Carbon Cub, which I fly today alongside my Beechcraft Bonanza F33A.
Back in summer 2023, a clear evening with calm winds and a brilliant full moon seemed like the perfect invitation to take out the Bonanza. My night currency had lapsed, and I needed three takeoffs and landings to gain legal night status.
I live at Alpine Airpark (46U) in Wyoming, a terrific little field with a 5,000-foot paved runway sitting at 5,700 feet of elevation. Departing Runway 13 takes you straight out over a 10-mile-long reservoir, with 10,000-foot peaks on one side and 11,000-foot peaks on the other. On a dark night the surrounding national forest offers zero lights and visual references, but under a full moon the mountains are majestic and easy to see.
At least, that is what I was counting on.
Around 10 o’clock I back-taxied in my Bonanza on Runway 13 to the run-up area. Rolling down the pavement, I could see the moon rising low in the gap of the Snake River Canyon—gorgeous but oddly yellow, almost surreal. I shrugged it off, completed my checklist and engine run-up, made my unicom call, clicked the runway lights on, and lined up.
The takeoff roll was normal—rotation speed, liftoff, gear up. Then I looked outside and saw nothing. Absolute pitch black. The mountains, the water, the moonlit landscape I had admired five minutes earlier—all gone.
I climbed by hand-flying to 800 feet, scanning desperately for any visual reference. Then my Garmin G3X started barking: “Terrain, terrain—pull up, pull up.” My heart rate spiked, but I was sure I was climbing wings level. I pressed the autopilot—the glorious blue button—and the airplane immediately banked 20 degrees to the right. It felt completely wrong, so I disconnected and corrected back to what I thought was level.
A glance at the moving map told a different story. My track was nearly 90 degrees off the runway centerline, aimed straight at the mountains west of the reservoir. Spatial disorientation had grabbed me without warning.
I made the only decision that mattered—trust the instruments, not my gut. I reengaged the autopilot, accepted its unsettling correction, switched to heading mode, and dialed in a course down the center of the lake. I set a vertical speed of 800 fpm and climbed to my minimum safe altitude for the area—11,500 feet.
Up there I finally had room to maneuver. I turned back toward the field, and at last I could see the runway lights and the faint glow of town behind me. That strange moon, now a little higher in the sky, was partially blocked out. Then it hit me. During the five minutes I had spent on my run-up and checklist, a full lunar eclipse had begun. The light I had taken for granted simply vanished while I was head down in the cockpit.
I landed safely, skipped the remaining touch-and-goes, and went home for a quiet cup of tea with trembling hands.
The lessons from that night have stayed with me.
First, spatial disorientation is devastatingly real. I have aerobatic training and hundreds of hours on instruments, yet I had never experienced anything like it.
Second, the autopilot is not a crutch or a cop-out. It is one of the most powerful safety tools in the cockpit. Drop your pride and press the blue button.
Third, instrument proficiency is essential for every pilot, not just those who fly in clouds. That night I resolved to stop procrastinating and finish my instrument rating, which I promptly did. And finally, when a cascade of unexpected events unfolds, the training takes over only if you let it.
Stay calm. Trust the process. Fly the airplane.
You are unlikely to plan for a lunar eclipse, but you can plan to be ready when the world goes dark.
This column first appeared in the July Issue 972 of the FLYING print edition.