Airworthy

She came in on a Tuesday with a logbook and a list,
a hundred hours of honest work and one thing someone missed;
we pulled the cowl, we pulled the plates, we laid her open wide,
and everything the paper says is there, we looked inside.

Not the paint, not the shine, not the way she sits;
does she match what she was built to be, and is she fit?

Is she true to her type? Is she fit to go?
Two conditions, and no third;
and a name signed down below.

Compression on the cylinders, the timing on the mags,
the tension on the cables, and the placards and the tags;
a directive in the logbook, and the method, and the day;
the things we cannot see from here, the records have to say.

Not the paint, not the shine, not the way she sits;
does she match what she was built to be, and is she fit?

Is she true to her type? Is she fit to go?
Two conditions, and no third;
and a name signed down below.

Dave signs it with his number and the letters A and P,
the date, the time in service, and the line that sets her free:
inspected, and determined to be in airworthy condition.

Is she true to her type? Is she fit to go?
Two conditions, and no third;
and a name signed down below.

All systems nominal.
Proceed with gravitas.

An inspector doesn't ask you if a part is any good;
he asks you if it is the part, the one the drawing said it should;
the number on the drawing, on the tag, and on the part,
and the three of them agree, or you go back to the start.

Conformity:
the drawing, the tag, the part;
if any one of them is missing,
it goes on the shelf, apart.

Giles tags every amplifier with the date it last was checked;
Ambrose writes the drums in numbered paragraphs, and every one's correct;
Clemency writes the method in the margin of the score;
and the flute came with a receipt from nineteen sixty-four.

Conformity:
the drawing, the tag, the part;
if any one of them is missing,
it goes on the shelf, apart.

The guitar came with no paper; Dave had bought it secondhand;
we asked him for its records, and he didn't understand;
he played the first rehearsal through, every downstroke on the beat,
and Giles wrote out a tag for it, and called the file complete.

A part with no paperwork may be the perfect one;
it may be the very part, but it isn't going on;
it does not go on the aircraft, whatever it may be;
we made one exception for a guitar, in nineteen eighty-three.

Conformity:
the drawing, the tag, the part;
if any one of them is missing,
it goes on the shelf, apart.

The trainer sits out on the ramp, the pitot cover in the pocket of the seat,
and a wasp finds the open tube and gets to building in the heat;
by the time you're back it's packed with mud, out there underneath the wing.
Shine a light down every opening; look before you trust a thing.

Pitot and static,
ram air and still;
block the one, the airspeed lies;
block the other, and three needles will.

Nine thousand in the cloud tops and the outside air was minus two;
the pitot heat was off, which is a thing you should not do;
the ram air and the drain hole iced, and the airspeed, with the climb,
began to climb along with us, an altimeter now, in time.

Pitot and static,
ram air and still;
block the one, the airspeed lies;
block the other, and three needles will.

If the static ports ice over, then the altimeter freezes in place;
the vertical speed sits on zero, climbing or not, all the same.
There's a knob below the panel for the alternate static air;
the cabin's lower pressure makes them read a little high from there.

Pitot and static,
ram air and still;
block the one, the airspeed lies;
block the other, and three needles will.