The Ballad of Kandy Kim, Part 3

As we prepare for our final landing there are a few details left to take care of. It’s presumptuous, we know, given how much of your time you’ve given to our bards and raconteurs, but we’d like to end this little volume of flying stories with a recommendation.

Before we do, there’s a final part to the story of Kandy Kim. We mentioned that there were other airplanes in World War II that performed heroic feats without the benefit of a pilot. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the clan couldn’t hear these stories and not investigate. Over the years they’ve talked with pilots and ground crews, engineers and designers. They discovered that somewhere in the life of every one of those planes someone named Vygantas, or Vygantis, or in one case Vineman, made an appearance. Of course that could just be the stories being the stories, and since Gytis himself became something of a legend among fliers, it’s possible that over the years he’s become associated with them more as a matter of truth than of fact. He went on to become a senior engineer at Lockheed and was involved with the design of some of the most cutting edge airplanes in history. Turns out he had a knack, and then some. You’ll forgive us for concluding his knack, and, perhaps, his family’s was something more than that.

Kim’s destiny and heroism lay on a different path. The folks who build today’s modern stealth fighters and bombers would be quite jealous of her, because although she flies every week she only rarely appears as an errant blip on radar. Times being what they are, from time to time the Air Force will scramble fighters to intercept an unknown aircraft. The combat pilots who’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in one of those intercepts always end up flying in formation with her for a while, stunned that they are seeing an airplane they’d heard of only as a legend and a rumor. They never report what they’ve seen, which is one of the reasons you’ll still hear stories about fighter pilots seeing UFOs. That’s how they report those missions. There’s an unspoken agreement among aviators to respect Kandy Kim. Without her they would lose one of the purest forms of magic left in the world.

Which brings us to our recommendation, and the end of this little volume of flying stories. In this day and age we’ve discovered magic can be difficult to come by. Everything has an explanation, and there are a lot of people who flat out refuse to believe in it.

If you find yourself losing the magic that makes life worth living, get in an airplane. Not a big jetliner but a little airplane, preferably with a single piston engine and no more than six seats. A plane where you can see not just out a little side window but 360 degrees around you. Maybe call an old friend who has her pilot’s license, or go on a sightseeing flight from your local airfield. In a pinch, just post a note on the message board at the airport. Pilots are a generous lot and you’ll find one who will give you a ride simply because he or she knows what you’re looking for up there. Even if you’re not quite sure.