|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Over the years, I’ve noticed two main recurring themes across all my conversations with family and friends when they discover I can fly small airplanes: where do you go and how often do you fly. Even though the former topic is straightforward for me to discuss, I usually let my seven-year-old son do most of the talking; he is surely better than I at explaining the intricacies of our many flying adventures. The latter, however, is much more difficult to explain.
Where do you go and how often do you fly are the questions I hear most often.
What’s not obvious to a lot of non-pilot folk is that flying is one of the few passions you absolutely must do regularly just to safely do it. Think about that for a second: unlike other modes of transportation, you can stop driving for several months, even years, and still be able to get back into a vehicle with little to no training. Flying isn’t like that.
To try to explain this absurdity, I used to give my audience what amounts to an oral checkride by explaining the difference between currency versus proficiency, but that invariably leads to questions about what it even means to be current in the first place which would be right about where their attention span (and mine) starts to rapidly diminish. Instead, what I typically do now is explain that flying is more akin to a sport—I must fly regularly as part of my “training” to perform my best during the “big game” (read: It’s Time to Get High).
Flying is more akin to a sport—I must fly regularly to perform my best during the “big game.”
The sport analogy seems to resonate. Part-time aspiring pilots announce their retirement immediately as they weren’t committed in the first place, and now, with the realization of having to be forever wedded to the sky to do it safely, the thought of flight is suddenly no longer appealing. Understandable and wise.
However, for the more committed, follow-up questions typically revolve around where to find a personal trainer (“CFI”) and how much does it cost (“AMUs”). At that point I explain that, though flying is somewhat of a singe player sport, you can still join a team (“Club”) where you will find friendly personal trainers (“CFIs”) and teammates (“Pilots”) who will happily aid you in your quest to get high. At this point, the conversation either naturally peters out, or moves on to more advanced topics such as why the laws of physics still exist after the engine stops or why I don’t think there is a very good chance of the wings falling off.
One aspect of flying I do make clear, however, is that despite my love affair with it, the flying sport is a burdensome one, constantly demanding not only my time and energy, but also having aspects to it I can neither control nor do I want to. For example, I suspect most athletes own their training equipment, but that isn’t true for most pilots. In fact, owning a plane is an entirely different sport altogether from the sport of actually flying it! And how many athletes don’t fully understand and comprehend the rules of the game they are training for? This is common among pilot folk (including me). In fact, ask a room full of pilots on how to win the game (“Mission”), I guarantee you will hear a variety of both contradictory, yet completely valid responses.
In the end, there are days where I revel in the fact that I can just climb into an airplane and fly it; the sense of freedom and majesty flying provides is unparalleled. And then there are days I dread this flying sport, knowing full well the high opportunity costs I must endure to play it. Nevertheless, I persevere since it is the greatest sport on Earth.
Flying is the greatest sport on Earth.
- The Flying Sport - October 16, 2024
- Cruise Checklist, Complete? - August 14, 2024
- Friday photo: Niagara Falls for the solar eclipse - June 14, 2024
I like your ‘sport’ analogy. My last flight as PIC was an F-16 flight when I turned over command of my squadron and that happened in the summer of 1989. When asked if I miss flying and especially flying fighters, I respond with “YES, as a matter of fact, I do!” However, I also add, “Flying fighters is a young person’s ‘sport'”. It requires mental and physical toughness, a thorough preparation, and it can’t be a part-time avocation. I have a good friend who has taken me up in his RV-8 on brief flights here in the Atlanta area, but those are nowhere near what he and I used to fly in the late 70’s when we were flying A-10s in the same fighter wing!