Wind

Jn1:8. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear it's sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit.

So I'm thinking about wind. This reference from scripture is within the context of the holy spirit being sovereign... Working as he pleases in the restoration of human hearts. I'm thinking about this because as a pilot I am continuously reminded that the wind is a major player in the flight. I can't see it but I can see it's effects. The airplane is ever responsive to it. It's kinda funny, without going into it here, the wind direction and speed is available ... But try as we might to predict or quantify it, it is always at least slightly different. Or a lot different. Or shearing. A student said yesterday, " yeah, I checked the winds aloft ( FD) but I'm starting to notice that they are never accurate". Yeah me too I thought. I understand uneven heating, highs and lows and pressure gradients, friction and Coriolis, "local" winds... all that good stuff. The wind still seems to blow wherever it pleases.

I'm starting to think about this.

The invisible moving the visible.


29 April - thoughts on this a few days later:
Yesterday I flew a trip from AUO to BHM. I was very interested in the winds aloft because it was reported as 9900 all along my route of flight at 6,000 and below. I was surprised. I've never seen calm winds being forecast over that large an area. I didn't believe it. After looking at several other weather products I shrugged - maybe they are calm I thought because they was nothing to indicate otherwise.

It was pretty bumpy - no big deal - little light airplanes get bumped around some. Hit check point one and two maybe saw check point three those electrical lines can become iffy the big warehouse that I google - the one south of the interstate between two rail lines ... nowhere to be seen. I was so disappointed. I planned and planned a little visual trip - and it wasn't as lovely as I thought it was going to be. And the flight instructor was role playing crazy student pretty much the whole way there (and back) - that was the highlight of the trip. I woke up several times last night thinking about it - what could I have done better...why didn't I do this or that...did I make a plotter error...how did I let myself get suckered by the winds...?

A spiritual take away became apparent during the night. I like heavier airplanes. Light airplanes may represent novice level flying - a spiritual newbie so to speak. Light planes are grittier - more exposed to the elements and the trip I did was representative of beginner level flying - visual references outside the plane - no GPS, no VORs, not even ADF/NDBs (although I was just checking them to see what was up as an outer marker). It was hard...and not pretty. I was saturated to the point of not doing things that I do well - well. When I did boot up the GPS near Charlie - I was surprised to find myself there. I was embarrassed. I thought - well, at least you can rock the landing and taxi to ... and I did. In the FBO I began kicking myself around - like I do. That's not really very productive. The CFI wanted the course flown in reverse so I could maybe figure out where things went wrong and why. I flipped the headings and ended up off course on the same leg on the way home - I could see it happening because I was a lot farther away from the lake than my checkpoint was. In a few minutes I'll get out my nav log and recheck the heading I plotted for that leg. Surely the 2W as opposed to 3W on the isogonic lines didn't make that much difference ... I'm going to figure it out.

Little airplanes have difficulty finding their way. The stuff inside the plane that's there to help - helps quite a bit. Our chief is all about pilotage and dead reckoning and it is fun when you're just playing or challenging yourself, but for a solo student cross country it is almost unthinkable - I think.