Chapter 3: Two Stories about Flying I. His First Flight II. Black Aeroplane How to Tell Wild Animals The Ball Poem

The pilot of Dakota DS 088 plane was keen to reach home in England to spend a holiday with his family. On the way, his plane was engulfed in a huge storm of black clouds. So, he decided to fly straight into the storm as he did not want to miss the opportunity to meet his family for a good English breakfast. Thus, he took the risk of flying through the storm even when the visibility was almost nil.

As the pilot (author) entered the big storm of clouds, his plane started to jump and twirl in the air. He could not see anything outside the plane as it was engulfed by completely black storm clouds. When he looked at the compass and other instruments, they had stopped functioning due to the turbulent weather. It was a fearsome and frightening experience for the pilot. The fuel tank of his plane was also almost empty and he could not fly more than ten minutes in it. Suddenly out of nowhere, he saw another black aeroplane with no lights on its wings appear by his side, and the pilot of that plane beckoned him to follow. The narrator obediently followed the other black plane that had no light. He followed the strange black aeroplane without any choice through the storm and soon landed on the runway safely.

The pilot was delighted to land safely after being caught in a dense storm of dark clouds and was not sorry to walk away from the old Dakota. He was filled with gratitude for the pilot in the other black aeroplane and desperately wanted to thank him for helping him in such a fearsome situation. He felt sorry that he could not thank his benefactor enough for helping him land on the runway safely.

The woman in the control centre looked at the narrator strangely when the narrator mentioned the black aeroplane that helped him land safely on the runway. She gave him a surprised look and told him that nothing except the narrator’s plane was in the sky during the storm. The radar showed the narrator’s plane as the only one in the night sky.

There is no definite explanation for the appearance of the unknown pilot who helped the narrator. We can assume that it was probably the narrator himself who overcame his fear in the midst of a storm as no other plane was visible in the radar except the narrator’s Dakota DS 088. In that frightening situation, the pilot might have fantasized that someone had come to his help. However, he was a good pilot, brave enough to fly through a dense and turbulent storm and land on the runway safely.