The passengers' cockpit, which cozily seats two and is in front of the pilot's, has leather seats and a seatbelt, and not much else. Once Nitchman starts up the plane, conversation is impossible over the rattling vroom of the engine. The floor is one big vibrating foot massage. As he taxis down the runway, the plane lurches shakily until it soars and gains altitude. At 1,000 feet, the wind feels silky and cool.
Sunlight bounces off the plane from the west.
Nitchman is flying along Elliott Bay, and the water is a varnish of blues, the cityscape a grove of steel. He flies over Magnolia, turns near Shilshole Bay and glides over the Space Needle. As he readies to land, Mount Rainier looms like a ghost. You're out there. On Orcas Island, Rod Magner, owner of Magic Air Tours in Eastsound, says he's flown more than 5,500 people in his 1929 Travel Air Model 4000.