Making Superman

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.

That would be a question that even Frasier Crane would struggle with.

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.

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.