Chapter 21

It was spectacular to be a participant in the World Championships at Le Havre. Wearing our formal uniforms, we lined up for the procession of seventy-four pilots from twenty different countries, ready to march across the field. A band played, and a large crowd had come to the field to cheer us on, including Ben and my parents and in-laws. As “The Star-Spangled Banner” rang out, we marched together as a team behind a huge American flag, passing before a review stand where dignitaries shook our hands. Cameras clicked and flashbulbs flared. PBS’s Nova filmed the team for the documentary “Daredevils of the Sky.” Behind velvet ropes, spectators cheered and shouted. All the pomp and ceremony moved me in a way I hadn’t expected.

In the past, overt displays of patriotism made me nervous with their hidden political meanings. But on this day, it was all about the simpler joy of belonging to a group I felt proud of. The best pilots from Russia, Lithuania, France, the US, and about twenty other countries had come together to compete against our peers for the title of World Aerobatic Champion.

I was so proud to be the first Latina on the US Team and to have overcome so many obstacles along the way. And I felt I was truly representing all Americans here in France, especially the underdogs, all the Americans who had come from behind, all the immigrants who’d arrived with their own dreams and had contributed to building a better country. Now it was my turn to contribute.

It was particularly poignant to be part of an international event at that time because only a couple of years prior, history had been made when the Berlin Wall came down. In those heady and exciting years of democracy breaking out all over the world, it seemed as if human society were finally maturing. As a member of an international team, I had a front-row seat. By meeting pilots from many countries, seeing them face-to-face as human beings and not as stereotypes or faceless enemies, I’d become immersed in history as an active participant rather than a mere spectator. Russian and Ukrainian pilots, no longer Soviets, flew as guests at our national championships. One of my most vivid memories was watching the former Eastern Bloc pilots at a Holiday Inn buffet, piling their plates high with fresh fruit, something they clearly weren’t accustomed to.

In a group conversation, a US pilot asked a Russian pilot what he thought of the fall of the Iron Curtain. “Communism was a grand seventy-­five-year experiment,” he pronounced. “We are never going back.”

The first to be held since the effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall were realized, the 1992 World Championships marked a number of its own firsts as well. In past contests, the Soviet team had been led by longtime Soviet national champion Jurgis Kairys. He was now, for the first time, on the Lithuanian team. Several other countries that had never competed in the World Championships were now fielding teams, such as Romania. The Russians walked behind a white, blue, and red flag that had been adopted less than a year prior. No more hammer and sickle. The men wore bright-red uniforms and the women long, flowing white dresses. The Cold War was over.

* * *

The pilots’ briefing was held early in the morning on Tuesday, July 7, 1992, in one of the huge, white tents. We assembled on folding chairs lined up in neat rows, and the contest officials sat at a long table in front of us. An official placed a large burlap bag on the table. Rather than randomly assigning the order of flight in a back room, it was to be decided here, in full view of everyone, to ensure fairness. The order of flight matters tremendously in a high-stakes competition. Just as in US competitions, the first pilot ends up being the “wind dummy” and must contend with potentially lower scores due to mistakes made while misjudging the wind. In addition, the first few flights at a World Contest have historically received lower scores. No one is quite sure why. Perhaps it takes the judges a while to warm up, or perhaps they are subconsciously saving their top scores for later. In any event, no one wanted to draw numbers one through nine, and I sat there with my pulse racing as I waited for my name to be called.

The official procedure called for the pilots to be summoned, one by one, to the front of the room by name, where each would draw a numbered plastic disk from the bag: one to seventy-four. The drawing order was alphabetical—first by name of country, in English, then by personal name.

The first pilot, Christian Lesage from Belarus, was called and walked up to the front. He stuck his hand in the bag, rummaged around, and then drew out a disk and held it up. “Fifty-four,” announced the woman at the microphone.

I looked at the disk raised in the air and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They had embossed digits! There was no doubt in my mind that when Christian put his hand in the bag, he could feel those raised numbers. I leaned over to mention this to Matt, who frowned. The seated teams began to whisper to each other. Were others also noticing the raised numbers? Should I say something?

Because of how the drawing order was determined, the United States would pick after everyone else had selected their numbers. We would be at a disadvantage before the contest had even begun. I nudged Matt again, and he nodded. He stood up and walked to the front of the room to confer with the judges. There was a brief whispered conference, and then the woman at the microphone announced, “The drawing of the lots will continue.”

More whispering and dismay arose from the US side. France, Russia, and the United States were the three main contenders for the team championship. Was this a deliberate effort to assure supremacy of the French team, or a simple oversight? I remembered Matt’s description of the box shenanigans at the contest held in Russia. The murmurs continued. I remembered that the French team had spent a few weeks practicing in the competition box earlier this summer, something no other team had been allowed to do. I started to simmer with a feeling of injustice. Was there something I could do? Or did I just have to accept my fate?

Finally, it was the Americans’ turn to draw our flight order.

“Cecilia Aragon,” the announcer called, and I made my way to the front.

I plunged my hand into the bag and felt the eight remaining plastic disks. I could easily read the numbers with my fingers, all only a single digit. I picked number eight, the highest one left. Every US team member ended up scheduled in the first ten flights of the contest. The very last person to pick drew number one, and everyone clapped and cheered as they held up the booby prize.

Would this obvious unfairness be corrected or not?

Our team manager filed a formal protest. By international rules, the jury had two hours to consider it. We waited uneasily. Would we have to go get our airplanes prepped for our early flights?

Fortunately, after a short conference, based on the irrefutable evidence before them, and the fact that the United States had, despite all laws of probability, become the wind-dummy squad, the international jury declared a redraw.

This time, all the disks were placed face down on the table, and we each had to select a number without the option of touching them. The picks appeared random this time. One of the French pilots ended up with the number one disk, and she held it up, smiling ruefully, as everyone else cheered and clapped. When it was my turn, I drew number twelve. A good draw. Relief flooded through me. Twelve was not so early that the judges wouldn’t be warmed up, yet not so late that they would be tired or the flying would go into the next day.

I headed off to meet my family and get my airplane ready. Ben, his parents, and my parents were staying in a nearby hotel and helping me with the airplane. We’d all eaten lunch at a local restaurant that had completely revamped their menu for the championship. I’d ordered the salade voltige, or “aerobatic salad.” Not only was it delicious, but it was on the house when the restaurant owner found out I was one of the competition pilots. I felt so honored.

On the airfield, my mother had been eagerly handing out her homemade Sabre buttons, and they’d become a big hit with the international pilots. It was cool to see so many people wearing my mother’s photographic art around the airport. It was my turn to feel proud of her.

Practice flights were scheduled all afternoon. Each of the seventy-four contestants was allowed ten minutes in the box to practice. The box was lined up with the coast and not with the runway, making it challenging to stay oriented. I had a hard time concentrating on my sequence because the French coast was so gorgeous, the blue Atlantic unfurling into the distance, the patchwork of green fields arrayed helter-skelter in the opposite direction. But the box markers were clear, and my flight was clean. I landed, drenched in sweat but exhilarated.

The next day would bring six of the most important minutes of my life, bearing the weight of all my expenses and donations, hours of practice, and the hopes of our supporters back in the US. My performance during those all-important, precious moments would, in part, determine the United States’ standing in world competition.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the US had dominated world aerobatic competition. But in the 1980s, due in part to diminished financing on our side and the Soviet and French governments’ full funding of their pilots, the French and the Russians had won the championship consistently, with the US coming in third. We hadn’t won a world contest for a long time. This was our chance to reverse that trend and to win back the World Championship for the United States.

* * *

The next day, shortly before my contest flight was scheduled to begin, a pilot from one of the other teams approached as my husband, parents, and in-laws were helping me take the wing covers off the Sabre. He wore a brown shirt and neatly pressed black slacks rather than an official uniform. He introduced himself as Gheorghe Militaru, one of three pilots from the Romanian team.

“It’s exciting time for Romania,” he said in fractured English. “This is first year Romania sends delegation to the World Aerobatic Championships.” He went on to tell us that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he took part in demonstrations that led to a national uprising against Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The first free elections since World War II were held in his country in 1990. And this year his government had decided to send pilots to the Championships. His pride fairly radiated from him.

He’d been walking around the field, examining many of the other pilots’ aircraft, and he was especially interested in my Sabre. “You did not buy it from factory?” His eyebrows lifted.

I explained that it was one-of-a-kind and that I oversaw its construction, telling him a little about the Edge wing and my journey to the World Contest. He listened with rapt attention.

He knocked on the surface of the wing. “Is carbon fiber?” he asked.

I nodded. “Rated to twelve g’s.”

“And made in family business, like you are here with family.” He gestured to my husband and father-in-law and cracked a grin. “Homemade.”

I returned his smile. “Yes, homemade.”

He understood, I realized with a rush of emotion. Like me, his team also operated on a shoestring. He’d seen an uprising of the common people succeed against the rich and powerful, and now he was going to pour all his energy into his flight, just as I was. Although we barely had a mutual vocabulary, Gheorghe and I had a great deal in common.

My family all helped me finish rolling up the wing covers, and I began a thorough preflight inspection. A light breeze had sprung up as PBS’s Nova reporter interviewed me before the flight. My father-in-law told them how he had been a Korean War pilot and how pleased he was to support the US Team. My mother-in-law squeezed my hand and told me under her breath, “He’s so proud to have another pilot in the family.”

Before I climbed into the plane, my mom gave me a big hug and kiss and told me to stay safe.

“Always,” I assured her.

My dad told me his buttons were popping, and that my plane looked beautiful. Ben’s eyes were glittering. “You look beautiful,” he said. “Fly as well as you always fly.”

It was almost time for me to roll my plane into position. The flight for my homemade airplane and the test of my homespun, grassroots approach to flying would be coming up soon. I took a last swig of water, jogged to the outhouse and back, and strapped in. This was it.

I took off and circled over the blue, blue ocean. It was a gorgeous day, sunny but not too hot. The air was crisp and cool and not at all humid—perfect for aircraft performance, and a joy for its pilot. The Sabre wanted to fly. I felt its eagerness in the way it leaped off the ground and banked crisply into turns.

I’d flown the 1992 Known Compulsory many times, as well as visualized it in my mind on the long cross-country flights over empty terrain in the US, while standing in line for a brioche at the bakery in Saint-Valery, before going to sleep in my narrow hotel bed, and first thing in the morning when I woke up. Would I be able to fly it as perfectly as I had in my imagination?

I dove to enter the box, and the Sabre screamed as the airflow past my fuselage built to a crescendo. The box markers gleamed bright and clear in the morning sun. The fields below shone vividly green, and lights like jewels flashed off the windows of the city of Le Havre. To my left, the endless blue Atlantic rolled, its gold-tipped waves shimmering in the brilliant sun.

I pulled up for the first figure, breathing deeply, letting the clean air flow into me and through me, taking in the energy of the earth and the sky and the sea. I nailed the vertical line, paused, hit the points of the roll up, one, two, three. I pushed up and over the top, inscribing a perfect half circle in the sky. On the downline, I held an absolute vertical, straight toward the ground. My wings vibrated in the still air. Then I entered an outside snap roll that threw me hard against the straps with six negative g’s of force. I relaxed my entire body and breathed gently so as not to build up too much blood pressure in my brain. The horizon and earth gyrated around me, and I pushed full opposite rudder to stop after exactly 450 degrees of rotation. Perfect.

I held the downline long enough for it to show well to the judges and paid no heed to the way the ground was coming closer and closer as I was pointed straight at it under full throttle.

Fear? What was that? I’d left the fear of dying, the fear of humiliation, the fear of letting down my team behind me now. There was only the joy of the airplane and me linked together as a single being, flying in partnership with air and gravity, pirouetting over the earth.

It seemed that as I flew, time slowed down, and I had all the time in the world to watch my wind drift, to note the locations of the box markers, to adjust my sequence so all the figures were positioned just right. I felt the rhythm beneath me, the rhythm of the tides and the sea and the winds, the rhythm that created me as a full member of the human community, the pull of gravity and physical laws, the striving of life toward the sun. This was the way it was meant to be. At last I felt one with my world, my life the inevitable extension of fundamental principles, my emotions and desires the purest expression of the urgent drive upward.

The last maneuver was a full outside snap on a vertical upline followed by an inverted exit.

It was crisp and beautiful, breaking free from the line the way I’d broken free from my fear. I exited the box inverted, and over my head, through my clear wide canopy, spread the green earth. Below my feet lay the sky, and I knew at last this was my birthright, as it was the birthright of every living being: to be at one with the planet and a part of the spectacular and complex universe.

* * *

I landed to the cheers of my teammates, the pilots from other countries, and my parents, in-laws, Ben, and many friends, all beaming with pride. I knew I’d flown well but wasn’t sure how that would translate into a score. But to my delight, at the end of that day, I was ranked first in the world among women. I wondered how this could be true. And yet, it was. For that one day I was number one. The French magazine covering the championship reported that day: “Excellent performance from the United States with the best place of Cecilia Aragon. First among the women pilots for the moment, she’s confirming the American strength.”

After all the women had flown the Known Compulsory program, I ended up in fourth place overall. When the final accounting was done and my rank was announced, I beamed with joy and ran to find my family to tell them the news. I’d never seen such big grins on my parents’ and in-laws’ faces. Ben lifted me up in the air and twirled me around. I also turned in the second-strongest flight among my teammates, which was quite a surprise from a rookie from whom no one expected too much.

I left the World Championships ranked one of the top aerobatic pilots in the world. I’d achieved a goal I once thought impossible. Now I was ready to take those lessons to the ground and achieve other dreams.