OLD FLYING YARN—

I reported my altitude to the control tower as I climbed through 15,000 feet. The tower guys had been curious about the progress of my flight experiment.

I was alone (with a portable bottle of oxygen) in a Cessna 150; a small training airplane with a 100 horsepower engine.

I heard a guy in a spiffy Beechcraft plane, far below, ask the tower, “How high is he going?” “As high as it will go,” they told him.

At 17,000 feet my indicated airspeed had dwindled to zero, my rate of climb instrument was reading below horizontal and I was timing my climb by the clock. Ice was forming on the windshield—on that August day.

Finally, at 17,140 feet, my experiment concluded itself with a gentle stall and the nose of the plane pitched down in compliance with the law of gravity.

This isn’t as daring as it may sound. The engine doesn’t stall; the wings do. That simply means they are no longer going through the air at sufficient speed to lift the weight of the airplane.

Once the nose pitches down, speed increases and presto! You are flying once again.

As I drifted in my long descent, periodically adding a burst of power to keep the engine warm, I smiled contentedly.

This well used little trainer had bested the factory’s advertised, maximum ceiling by several thousand feet.

I hoped the guy in the fancy Beechcraft knew that.