A Little Too Unusual

After flying under a bridge too far...

- MARTHA LUNKEN

It was a dark and stormy night; my electrical system had failed, and the battery was dead. Descending lower and lower in the murk, looking for familiar landmarks, I saw—dead ahead—the magnificent Jeremiah Morrow Bridge spanning the Little Miami River on Ohio’s Interstate 71. My only option was to fly beneath that high-and-wide span and make my way back home to Lunken Airport.

No—that’s a big, fat lie.

The unvarnished truth is: It was a pretty, early spring afternoon on March 2, 2020, and I was randomly boring holes into the sky, making takeoffs and landings at several small airports and planning to call Cincinnati Approach for a practice approach into Lunken. I did some bounces at a nontowered airport near Wilmington, but nobody was home, so I flew north a few miles to an old friend’s semi-abandoned private strip. He’s gone now after a tragic airplane accident, but I still land there sometimes and sit on the empty ramp, remembering and whispering a prayer for him. But that day, I was testing my mettle with a couple of landings on that narrow 32-foot-wide paved strip with a built-in crosswind. My “ arrivals” were less than elegant, so after the last jarring touchdown, I gave up and pointed the Cessna 180 west toward Oxford, Ohio.