People, not machines

When I first began writing about aviation and my encounters with it, I spent some time noodling around this question in my head: What is it that attracts me to this business?

That may seem silly to some, or unnecessarily introspective, but it is a real question that I still ponder from time to time. 

While the machinery fascinates me — from the shape of a wing to the structure of a fuselage, not to mention the various types of engines, propellers, avionics, and even the ergonomic experimentation found in virtually every cockpit — it turns out the thing that really attracts my attention and sparks my intellectual interest is the people I meet at the airport and the aspirations they have and work so hard to achieve.

With the COVID-19 lockdown easing in Florida, I had the opportunity to venture out to a couple airports in the region recently. One in my home county, one just one county away.

Considering my home county is twice the size of Rhode Island, and my normally wide-ranging travels have been limited in recent months, the chance to get out and see other living humans was quite a treat.

At one point I found myself sitting in the air-conditioned lobby area outside a main hangar. I was reviewing my notes, when a tall, slender gentleman approached, extended his hand and said, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Aron.” 

It turns out Aron is a pilot in training. He and his family moved from New Jersey to central Florida specifically to accommodate and accelerate his desire to become a career aviator. He’s a sharp enough individual that he’s been selected to be the incoming vice president of the flying club he belongs to. While he’s in training, he continues to run his two businesses. One makes and retails telephone accessories, the other is a car wash business that contracts to clean fleet vehicles.

I found Aron to be amiable, outgoing, and thoroughly enjoyable to chat with. 

Later in the afternoon I spent some time with Sean, a commercial pilot with aspirations to fly professionally with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters. He just recently flew with one of their pilots, having been diligent enough to establish a relationship with some of the folks who do what he hopes to do one day. Networking, you know. 

While Sean is building time and gaining experience, he’s had some interesting aerial adventures. He’s flown VFR cross-countries stretching hundreds of miles in each direction. And he’s done those trips in taildraggers that need to be hand-flown every moment they’re in the air or on the ground. He’s logged an international flight or two as well.

That’s more than most GA pilots will do in a lifetime. But he’s not done yet. At the moment he is working on earning his CFI certificate so he can devote his attention to flying full-time.

Both Aron and Sean impressed me. They exhibited the kind of gracious, affable demeanor I find so often amongst aviation professionals. Their dedication to their respective goals was evident, as was their willingness to chat at length about their achievements and the challenges they had to overcome to get where they are today. 

It might also be worth noting that both Aron and Sean are teenagers. Aron will be a senior next year. Sean will have graduated by the time you read this.

The average outsider, and by outsider I mean people who are not involved in aviation, may not believe this, but in my experience neither Aron or Sean are particularly remarkable. In fact, they’re fairly average examples of what happens to young men and women who are introduced to aviation at a young age, are encouraged to participate in a meaningful way, and are allowed the latitude and the time it takes to learn how to take responsibility for their own work.

Even at the tender age of 16 and 18, Aron and Sean have a history that includes restoration of classic aircraft, maintenance of flying aircraft, and time in the pilot’s seat of machinery they’ve helped to build, maintain, and prepare for flight. That’s impressive by any standard.

I’ve owned six aircraft over the course of my career. If I am successful in convincing my wife that it’s a good idea, I may own a seventh one day. Should that come to pass, I will cherish that aircraft as I have its predecessors.

Having the luxury of an aircraft at your disposal is an amazing thing, every bit as incredible as the aircraft itself. The fact that we can plop ourselves into the seat, fire up the powerplant, and rise into the air on a brilliant spring morning where we see the blue and green Earth laid out before us, stretching endlessly to the horizon in every direction — well, that’s hard to beat.

That opportunity, that exposure to altitude, allows each of us who take on the challenge of flying under our own steam to experience life in an entirely different way than our ground-bound friends and acquaintances. We accept the risks for what they are and learn to work out our issues rather than fear them. We set checkpoints and waypoints and destinations, then measure our own ability to reach them on time, on course, and with a plan for what comes next.

Aviation affects people in such positive ways and opens up our senses to an almost limitless cornucopia of opportunity of human potential. Knowing that, I frankly can’t believe aerospace isn’t a required class starting in the sixth grade and running through all four years of high school. It’s where we experience math, science, communication, and spirituality in a very personal way, every single time we even flirt with the idea of life in the air.

Aviation is transformative for people from every walk of life, including people like Aron, and Sean, and you, and me.

That’s why I mostly focus on the people, not the machines. Because for all their potential, machines don’t revel in the imagination, motivation, inspiration, and pride of achievement humans brush up against during the course of every single flight we make.

Whether that flight is at 500 feet AGL with a destination of the next airport up the road, or an intercontinental trek at Mach numbers up in the thin air where people never belonged. We fly because we earned the privilege. And that idea appeals to me, very much.