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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.