Boy, that is a wonderful ... loving ...quote isn't it? Love. The writer of one of the few blogs I read is writing thoughts on I Cor. 13 ... probably my favorite chapter of the Bible ... the summit, so to speak, where the air is the cleanest, the view is the most expansive, where a climb is completed. I guess I'm a bit spoiled ... as a pilot I believe I can skip the drudgery of trudging one foot in front of the other all the slippery slope way up ... skip the often treacherous conditions confronted during the boot strap climb, skip the sore muscles, blisters rubbed raw, snapped pieces, frayed ends where a knot is now tied, cold shoulder frost icing over where something resembling love once warmed the heart, you know ... all that crappy stuff, skip the work/pain required by the climb ... and just fly there. Fly there. Fly there ...full power ... airspeed alive ... all instruments in the green.
God, I love to fly. Thank you, God, for making me a person who can sit in that seat! Please help me towards the self discipline that a walk with You requires ... thank you for creating within me, a flyer ... but, help me to walk/climb as You see fit, because God ... honestly ... I want to fly all the time ... and I know You know that ... and I know You know what's best for me ... all the time.
... It's so hard to put on ones boots while kicking ... help me to be still.
I like the looks of that air field in Sedona. Several of my friends were recently over that way for a big sports event and came back buzzed about the coolness of Sedona. It looks like you could depart and just let the mountain fall away ... Wow. I don't feel like looking at the specifics of the airport right now, but looking at it from google earth several months ago, I thought it was one of the most beautiful airports ever ... . One of my former students has been doing some missionary flying ... those grass strips they land on are ... insane. I'm noting this because I realize there are opportunities to land on mountains ... and there are people who have the experience and skill, the equipment to do just that. My life has predisposed me to seeing flat terrain as "normal" ... I notice mountains as different ... not as un-doable by any means, but I believe that a cow pasture is an landing strip waiting to happen where a mountain face is an accident waiting to happen ... yeah, that's how I think of them! On one hand, a little bs, on the other, some serious shit. The NTSB reports are jammed with stories of CFIT. I've read many of those reports ... and I can see that it takes more then cajones to successfully navigate in mountainous airspace.
Mountains present problems ... uhmm ...weather is problematic sometimes ... frequently ... as well. The weather has been very super squirrelly (yeah, that's a weather word) around here. It's been keeping me down and I was very tempted to make a flight which was offered ... something cool and so exciting ... a once in a life time sort of flight opportunity. Maybe not once in a life time ... more like once in a blue moon. As I got closer to committing ... well, I'd actually already said I would do it ... I started really looking at the weather. There was absolutely no way to make the flight without dancing with the devil while lightning flashed and TCUs piled up mountains of trouble ... the kind of mountains that no climber, no matter how skilled would be able to climb ... dancing with the devil and letting him chose the tune ... hmmm, what pilot would do that? Not me. No thanks ... have to step back from that ... reluctantly,but back for sure. My flying buddy stepped back as well. Thank God. I've seen lines like that before ... even the big guys go around rather then through!
Pilots are a lot of things ... stupid usually isn't one of them. I am laughing at that statement because the only times I've seen truly stupid seeping out of a pilot, it was being "dared" out of him/her by another pilot. Does that make sense? (I say dared, but that isn't anywhere near the whole of it ... pilots like the rush that come with high stakes ... and that isn't the whole of it either. Pilots like to live large ... I know I do, and I love to see it in others! I understand, I totally get it now, why a moth is drawn to a flame ... it has nothing, and everything to do with stupid!) Put a couple of pilots together with out a specific appropriate mission in mind and you might get that combustible mixture that I'm going to label "watch this here shit!" ...it is like a burning hot flame that you want to fly through (with a fuse hanging out of your fuel tank) ... we all know exactly what that looks like even if we've never seen it before. It's like a ride through the fire ... light me up baby.
That particular flight ... didn't go up. How do you measure the regrets ... the disappointment ... of not getting to launch a flight that you know would have come down in pieces. I guess sometimes you just gotta thank God for divine intervention ... and be mindful about daring the fates.
Note added 13 August someone said when the Bible says don't ... That we might hear that as don't hurt yourself on this ... stupid stuff hurts.
