Let the Clutch
Out Slowly
by Zach Smith
The first time I
learned how to drive a manual transmission, I
stalled the car and was almost hit by a plane.
Does that have
your attention?
Despite how
unlikely/impossible that may sound, it’s
true.
My Dad was a pilot,
and I grew up around airports.
When I was 16, he
was working at an airport with a 30-foot wide
runway that maybe three planes landed at per day,
about as small and sedentary as a public airport
can get.
I could tell you
about his trailer/home-away-from-home, or the
cartoons watched, and Power Metal playlist
listened to while waiting for his shift to end;
or the local Chinese restaurant, strangely out of
place, that made a spectacular General Tso’s
Chicken, garnished with ears of baby corn, that I
can still taste twenty years later. I could tell
you about all these things, but they aren’t
important to this story.
My Dad heard that
the best place to learn how to drive a manual is
a big flat, empty parking lot, and there was no
parking lot as big or flat or empty as this
particular airport, deep in the wooded mountains
of northeastern Pennsylvania.
“You’re
just going to let the clutch out slowly,” he
said. “You’ll feel the engine grab. Don’t
touch the gas at all. When you feel the car start
to shake, push the clutch back in so it doesn’t
stall.”
Of course, I
stalled. That’s what happens when learning
to drive a stick, you stall, and you keep
stalling until you don’t.
But I did alright,
and after several hours was pretty confident.
We got back in the
car, he in the passenger seat again, and headed
from his hanger at one end of the runway to his
trailer at the other end, so he could change out
of his jumpsuit and then to dinner at that
Chinese restaurant (not part of this story).
Before we pulled
onto the runway, a piper cub, a small single-engine
airplane with fabric wings, prepared for takeoff.
The only plane to do so that day.
We sat in neutral,
waiting.
The piper took off.
I put the car in
gear, let the clutch out slowly, and stalled.
After getting the
car started, we turned onto the runway.
I didn’t
touch the gas (I didn’t touch the gas the
whole day) but probably should have.
Dad watched as the
plane did a two-minute turn and flew parallel to
us.
“Speed up,”
he said. “He’s doing a short pattern.”
I put the car into
second and stalled again... somehow.
The car stalled
again as soon as I let the clutch out... slowly.
Start, stall,
start, stall.
The plane banked
for another two-minute turn and was on final
approach.
“Okay, get
out,” he said.
We jumped out of
the car and into each other’s door.
He started the car
and peeled out just before the wheels of the
piper grazed our roof.
The pilot pulled
up and flew around again for a missed approach.
He was just buzzing us for fun. It wasn’t
nearly an accident, but it was and still is a
good story.
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