by David Mills
(Before the movie “Test Pilot” starts, Harry Stewart Jr. ponders what Clark Gable’s character does for work in the film.)
Before Gable goes up, ground testing comes down
to up-on-jacks flight simulations and swinging landing
gear on the ground (or just a pinch above), comes down
to propping a plane on fat air bags and sweeping
control surfaces, checking the attitude of the aircraft
(roll, pitch and yaw), comes down to aluminum fatigue
and flutter tests, (flutter:: a plus) going so fast that wings tremble
and bend so much the damper isn’t enough, so much there’s
a gust—an up—a bend, a twist, an angle of attack attacked
and then, the wing will swing down so low it’ll bob back up (two
apples mashed in a tub) bend so much the wing’s yanked right off;
best to find out on the ground not in the ether (the sky’s sometimes
unkind to test pilots); try each system separately, power up
the engines, check flight controls before they’re wedged inside
the cockpit, check backup operations, the mechanical hamburger
of subsystems (fuselage, wings, skyscraper and table-top tails)—
remember the giddy up ‘cause they’re looking to reproduce
the heavens in a hangar, to fling dead hens at the windshield;
to note how the structure holds up and against
the much more, the high-speed taxi testing, to
know how and why before there’s sky; then, when
Gable commands the cockpit with a flight plan,
he’ll need a feel for odd actions, to be a lickety-
split gone-wrong problem-solver, to share what he
senses with the revved-up ears of engineers; see
Gable would be the end of a production line, an above-
average birdman who can take a plane beyond expectations
and breaking points, maneuvering in and through
the invisible to earn each syllable of airworthy, to
face the strict conditions, (the flown under) the aircraft’s
experience, a pause—six-miles high—how air knows
to get out of the way, how the craft will handle stress
if there’s an unforeseen argument with the atmosphere
(a drag’s takeaway against the plus of thrust). This is
the performance before the performance. Because now
there’s more than just a curtain that’s about to go up.
Poem copyright 2025 by David Mills. All rights reserved.
See more poems from David Mills on The Fight & The Fiddle: “Momentary Arizona,” and “Dear… Sincerely…”
Read more in this issue: Interview | Critical Essay | Writing Prompt