Like most young boys, when I was
younger, the thought of flying through the air, either wearing tights or inside
an airplane was the closest thing to absolute cool as one could get. As the years went on however, the
thought of mortality began to kick in, some of the “cool” factor started to
wear off, and become nothing short of a white knuckled, sweaty palm experience
anytime I head a gate agent say “have a nice flight.”
When I was sixteen, my grandmother
took me to Mexico on a trip to see the Mayan ruins and the Yucatan Peninsula;
and there is a funny thing about being sixteen and a wide eyed “world
traveler.” It’s the age were things are
beginning to come together in the bigger picture of the world, but you still
have that feeling of invincible that allows you to try and jump boulders
on a BMX bike.
As we were on a local smaller
carrier, flying us from the main airport, I looked out the passenger window and
saw several workers, spraying out one of the large jet engines with a green
garden hose.
Now, in hindsight, had
this happened anytime in the last decade or so, the shear terror of observing
this incident would have driven me to be one of those people you read about
that have a special conversation with an air marshal, but at the time, it
didn’t seem out of the ordinary in the slightest way.
To this day, I don’t know what
might have been sucked into that jet turbine, although thinking back to Capt. Sullenberger and the Hudson, I can only imagine…but the sight of the workers
spaying whatever was in there out, as we sat on the plane waiting for the
obstruction to be cleared didn’t cause me panic, alarm, or even concern.
Fast forward a few years, and lackadaisical
attitude toward hurling through the air at five hundred miles per hour seems to
have, pardon the pun, more gravity to it.
Over the last ten or so years, I have spend a lot of time traveling by
plane. After moving to South
Carolina from New England , time
with the family meant a trip to the airport.
In recent years, traveling for the radio station, and eventually flying
three to four trips a month became commonplace.
A reasonable person might think after a while, the experience would
become somewhat routine. That the
“bumps” you feel as you approach, the noises you begin to recognize as unusual
are only casual observations. Nope.
Even as recently as my last
commercial experience, I found myself making all kinds of deals with anyone who
I hoped was listening just to get back on the ground.
I really can’t narrow this rather
irrational fear down to one root cause.
Is it a worry that the guy who topped off the tank forgot to screw the
gas cap on tight? Is it the thought of a
fight the pilot is having with his wife that may cause distraction enough to
miss a flock of birds? Is it simply the
final bump that might compromise the structure of a wing at 50,000 feet? And, if I really thought about it, it really isn't so much the flying part as the sudden stop when you hit the ground that troubles me.
As you have read the proceeding
paragraphs, you must be asking yourself, “I thought this about learning to
fly.” It is. In fact, it is that very fear that has driven
me to want to reach up into the sky and try to understand it.
Make no mistake, I am in no way
thinking I can master or somehow conquer the forces at work when you separate
us from solid ground, but it is a hope that with understanding,
education, and a little bit of old fashioned John Wayne, I might face the fear
head on and with a solid respect for mother nature and Isaac Newton, find a
freedom like no other.
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| Little Tyler - Foreshadow much?? |
In the passages and posts that
follow, I will record my experiences, sharing pictures and video, about one
man’s journey into aviation, and perhaps even provide an insight that anyone
can, even with irrational concerns, face those fears, and experience the dream
you had as a kid – to fly like Superman.
