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"Now a good pilot knows to check everything himself before every flight. Never depend on someone else to do it for you."
"Not even someone like Uncle Meredith?"
"Nope, not even him. He'd be the first to agree."
Johnny looked down at his nephew's boy and smiled at the earnest look on his upturned face. His young namesake had been listening to Johnny's every word as if it were gospel, eager and ready to be up in the air since he'd pounded down the creaky old stairs to breakfast. After a quick teasing tug at the bill of the baseball cap John wore, Johnny returned to his pre-flight lesson.
"Now my Puddlejumper doesn't have all the fancy instruments the bigger birds need, but the basics are the same for just about every one of them."
"I don't understand. Why do you call it a Puddlejumper? I thought you said it was a Jenny like that one that crashed."
"Well, she is and she isn't a Jenny. She certainly started out as one, a JN-4 Canuck, and she's near fifty years old. She was going to be scrapped when we got hold of her, and your Uncle Meredith pretty much rebuilt her from the wheels up. He wanted to make certain sure I was going to be as safe as he could manage." Johnny patted the fuselage with a fond smile. "I was the one who painted her my favorite color."
"Blue like the sky."
John tipped his head in acknowledgement, but added, "And a certain pair of eyes."
"So, Puddlejumper?"
"Well, when I first met Meredith, the whole world was going crazy about 'Lucky Lindy' and flying long-distance just about everywhere. He wanted me to promise him I wouldn't go trying to beat any records in my new plane like flying around the world. I told him I'd stick to crossing puddles like Lake Ontario to pick him up some maple syrup now and again."
Johnny shook his head at his memory of 'crossing his heart and hoping to die,' which had started another tirade about 'crazy flyboys who didn't have the sense to be scared.' With a quiet chuckle, he returned to his pre-flight check, boosting John to stand on the wing so he could look into the cockpit. "Now, you always want to be certain your engine is off and cool before you start, so the fluids are settled for measuring."
"Why did you crash?"
The quiet, tentative question caught Johnny off guard. He could hear the worry in John's voice and feel the slight tremble in the boy's body under his supporting hand. With a sigh, he helped John jump back down to the ground then leaned against the Puddlejumper and looked up into the waiting sky for inspiration, not wanting to frighten the boy out of flying but still needing to be honest.
"We don't rightly know what happened that day, although Meredith had his suspicions. I was making my last pass of the show, a big double-loop, and my Jenny stalled. I tried dead-sticking her in, but I'd lost too much air too soon and hit the trees just short of the field."
Johnny scrubbed his hand over his mouth, rasping against two days of stubble. "I don't remember much after that. Your uncle high-tailed it out there and pulled me out before it was too late. Took a couple of months before either of us was much good after that, although we'd both been pretty lucky. I had a broken leg, we both had some burns, and Meredith took in too much smoke trying to save my plane like a damn fool."
Wanting to erase the worry from John's wide eyes, Johnny smiled and said, "Almost a year to the day, I took the Puddlejumper up for the first time. She flew like a dream." He reached out and patted John's shoulder. "Just remember; you can't spend your life so worried about what might go bad that you miss out on the good."
John's expression slowly relaxed into a smile and then he tilted his head to ask, "So you never get scared, Uncle Johnny?"
Lifting his head so he could see Meredith standing in the doorway of the hangar and watching them go over the plane, Johnny thought about a cough that never got any better, and murmured, "Oh, I get plenty scared all right." Taking a deep breath, he shook off his worry and turned his attention back to John.
"Now, did I ever tell you Lindbergh used a Canuck like my old Puddlejumper to train in?"
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"Gateship One ready to go, Major Sheppard!"
"Gateship One? A little puddlejumper like this?"
"It's a ship. It goes through the gate. Gateship One."
"Oh no, no, no. That's all wrong, Lieutenant."
"Doctor McKay thought it was cool."
"Oh, okay. Well, it's official. You don't get to name anything. Ever. Flight, this is...Puddlejumper. We're go for launch."
"Er, this is Flight. I thought we were going with Gateship?"
"That's a negative, Flight."
"It's a ship. It goes through the gate. I, I… Fine. Puddlejumper, you are clear for launch."
"Dial it up, Lieutenant."