From the Diary of the Red Baron

From the Diary of the Red Baron

October 15, 1915- My First Solo Flight

This morning I woke with a feeling of occasion and nerves that I have not felt before- for on this day, I was to take to the air- alone.  I usually spring from my cot with the sun, but as the first rays leaked in through my shutters and onto the floorboards before me, and across the growing gaps between them, I found myself in quiet contemplation- my head resting on my fingers interlaced, as I lay facing not only the musty ceiling above, but also the challenge ahead.  “I am prepared… yes,” I said to myself- I had been over and over each maneuver taught to me.  The dos and don’ts were cycling through my mind with the rapidity of cylinders firing as with the engine of my flying machine.

It was not long after I set foot on the field that I came in contact with Zeumer.  If it would have been an acceptable thing for a soldier to say, I would have told him I was afraid.  After a few last pointers, he raised his experienced hand, and with a confident gesture towards the craft that would reveal my fate, he said to me… “Now go and fly by yourself.”

It had never taken so long to manipulate the apparatus that was responsible for tying me to the craft, and keeping me strapped in tight, the metal pieces clanging and clamoring together oddly until finally finding their compliment in one another as designed.  The before start regimen required much more time than I recalled, as it seemed I went step by step, and much more deliberately in light of the circumstance.

When the engine came to life it was as if I awoke a sleeping dragon, and after coughing and spitting smoke and fire in a brief fit of rebelliousness, its settled smoothness let me know it was brought under my command.

It was too late to turn back now, and as I motivated the great machine into position for takeoff, it seemed to me that I had, at that point, forgotten all that the great Zeumer had ever taught me- my mind clearing in proportion to every inch of throttle applied.  There was nothing left but to make my attempt.

My last contemplations of anxiety, trepidation, even death, were hopelessly bound to the Earth as I coaxed my great machine into the sky, for these fear-bred creatures had not wings to fly as I did.  Elation!  Freedom!  Peace! – These feelings served me well as passengers.  I had done it.  A pilot is born!

-M. von Richthofen

Article by Bret Berdard CFII, MEI