Sex and the Single Engine Aircraft

During any hanger flying session, after all the lies about daring piloting exploits have been recounted; the conversation invariably turns to lies about great feats of romance. Some of these tales of sex and aircraft have been repeated so many times that they have escaped the boundaries of the airport and entered the outside culture as bona-fide urban legends.

I have heard this particular story told at airports from Bar Harbor, Maine to San Diego, California and several other gatherings of liars located far from any airport. Of course, the story is always told by a person who knew personally or was related to the people in the story. Many of the details, like the type of the aircraft and purpose of the flight, vary but it is the same basic story.

The crux of the story is that a pilot fell to his death from a single engine aircraft because the aircraft inadvertently rolled upside down while he was engaged in an amorous exercise with a female passenger. For the story to have any credibility at all, the aircraft must be of a type that you could fall out of when it was flying upside down. The most prevalent version of the story is about the Globe Swift. This was a two-seat (side-by-side) single-engine aircraft introduced shortly after the end of World War II. Some called it a mini-fighter because it was a higher performance aircraft than the common two-seaters of that era and the canopy slid back just like some fighter planes. The picture shows a Swift with the canopy open. Other variations of the story use the Navion as the aircraft. The Navion was a four-seat aircraft that also had a sliding canopy. I heard at least one version where the airplane was an open cockpit biplane and the Don Juan pilot actually crawled (while in flight) out of his cockpit into the fair damsel's cockpit to assuage his libidinous cravings. By far the most creative variation involved a air show wing walking act. The husband pilot and his wing walking wife were deadheading between air shows. The wife climbed up on the wing and strapped herself to the special pylon so they could practice their act. The husband decided to surprise her with some high altitude romance and climbed up on the wing with her.

Besides the type of aircraft and the geographical location, there are three distinct versions of exactly what happened in the air and how it came about. The most common version that I have encountered is that a male pilot and a female passenger were just out for a pleasure flight and decided it would be nice to become better acquainted physically. Of course the pilot had to unfasten his seat belt and move over to the passenger's seat to do this. He opened the canopy for more maneuvering room. It was a warm sunny day and soon they were involved in getting to know one another better. A few unintentional nudges to the control yoke by the posterior portion of his anatomy caused the plane to roll upside down and gravity caused him to fall to his untimely death.

The second version is very similar, except the man was a flight instructor and the woman was taking a flying lesson. The instructor probably mentioned that he accepted payment for his services in other forms than checks or money orders. The student always sits in the left side (pilot) seat when taking a flying lesson. In this version, the instructor crawled from the passenger seat over to the pilot's seat. For some reason, flight instructors seem to tell this version of the story most often.

The third and least common version I've heard was that the woman was really an expert pilot herself and lured the man into the situation so she could murder him and make it look like a tragic accident.

Some versions have the aircraft crashing and the woman getting killed also. Others have the woman regaining control of the aircraft and making a safe landing. One thing all the variations have in common is the means by which it was determined that an act of physical intimacy was in progress. The stories originated long before DNA typing was discovered or CSI was heard of. But every one ends the story by stating the fact that when the unfortunate man's remains were recovered; he was found to be wearing a device that would only be worn if one had an amorous liaison on his mind.

In spite of all the variations of this story, there was probably some incident or close call that spawned this wonderful urban legend. From this every pilot can learn an important lesson. In a single-engine airplane with an open top canopy, safe sex means wearing a parachute.

And that's the truth!

Bowinkle T. Propwash