As EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023 is this week in the heart of Wisconsin’s pastural greenery, I find myself reflecting on what it was that attracted me to various sized gatherings of aviators.
Initially I believed the draw was quite basic. I was a pilot and an aircraft mechanic. Many in the crowd were also pilots or aircraft mechanics. Ergo, we all have something in common. Instant fellowship and friendship is the obvious result.
Well, no. Over the years I’ve decided it’s more than that.
The certificates we have tucked into our wallets for safekeeping don’t have quite as much power over us as I initially might have believed. It’s something else that binds us, I surmised. Something deeper, more powerful, and far more rare than merely possessing a shared love of aviation.
We aviation types tend to be bolder than the average man or woman on the street. For we have done something that most humans resist with great ferocity. We willingly faced a moment in life — many moments if we’re truthful — when we swallowed our anxieties and fears to step into a completely foreign environment where we would be required to confront our own inadequacies.
For us this wasn’t a thrill ride or a test of inner resolve. It was instead an intentional decision that we would confront our all-too-human fears and beat them back. We would expand our comfort zone to include a body of knowledge and a series of activities that most of our ground-bound peers find too far outside the norm to even consider pursuing.
That’s a profound difference between the attendees at the shows, large and small, that separates us from the crowd who don’t attend. It was that difference that established the hook that connected me to this remarkable industry and the people who inhabit it.
We are intentional, driven to a degree, and more than willing to put ourselves in situations we are well aware we are unfit to perform, while simultaneously seeking the instruction that will transform the most butterflies-in-the-belly inducing events to old hat experiences we may even learn to enjoy.
Who among us felt nothing but confidence during our first takeoff? How many greased their first landing attempts without any evidence of sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, or pilot-induced oscillations on final? How many student pilots love to perform power-on stalls from Day 1?
I suspect that number in each case is very close to zero.
Yet these are all normal activities for a pilot. These are also anxiety-inducing tasks that most of us encounter with trepidation when first exposed.
And why wouldn’t we? These are entirely foreign adventures the average person on the street would pay to avoid.
We, on the other hand, pay to be run through the ringer by our CFIs and DPEs.
Why? Because we have made a conscious decision to expand our comfort zone to include these new challenges. To best them. To take control of a machine that’s gone airborne and is held aloft by invisible forces we test ourselves against with intention and focus.
The term “comfort zone” is a relatively new phrase. It was coined by a business management researcher named Alasdair White in 2009. It is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress.”
That definition works for me. It is an excellent descriptor of the average human’s life experience. Find a place to call home, then settle in for the long haul. Seek out employment or some other means of raising the funds necessary to remain alive with relative satisfaction. Wash, rinse, repeat. Do not color outside the lines.
The blessing of the comfort zone is that it feels good. Life appears to be manageable. Even controllable. Not exciting, or invigorating, or remarkable. It’s not excessively challenging, however. And that’s enough for most folks.
That’s not the case with those of us who push the envelope, prioritize the expansion of our horizons, and seek to learn how to live a bigger, more audacious, increasingly satisfying life.
The real difference between the two states of mind are that the former eventually leads to a life fixed in a deep, seemingly inescapable rut, while the latter allows the individual in question to find their own personal groove and boogie down with great personal satisfaction.
Dance through life with gusto. That’s the ticket.
Humans suffer from a great many fears, death and public speaking ranking high on most lists. Fear of flying isn’t far down that list. Aerophobia, being the most egregious example of that fear, is a real thing.
Less panic inducing, but every bit as debilitating in the life of millions, is the general unwillingness to depart from the comfort zone the individual has come to appreciate. That reluctance to reach for the brass ring for fear that something bad might happen, or that someone might judge them harshly, is all too common. Sadly, this pedestrian state of affairs goes on largely unrecognized by most who live in a self-induced cocoon of mediocrity.
This is the train of thought I came to over many years in the aviation industry. We are a risk-averse bunch, but we are not beset with an industrial-sized case of the heebie-jeebies at the thought of trying something new — something that will impart a set of skills and a body of knowledge that will make our lives far better, even if the studying and training to reach that lofty goal takes time, money, and induces a certain amount of frustration now and then.
Whether you find yourself at AirVenture, or SUN ‘n FUN, or even a simple cook-out at the local airport, be proud that you’ve made the most of your opportunities. You sought out a better future and made it happen. No excuses, even if we do bounce a landing once in a while, or find ourselves momentarily disoriented when the GPS quits and we have to actually look out the window to find our bearings.
Are we perfect? No. But we aviators are pretty darned cool. That’s something to be genuinely proud of.
I very much enjoyed the article and I think the assessment of aviators vs the rest of the bunch is spot-on. I do want to add, though, that it is unlikely that the term “comfort zone” was coined in 2009 since singer/actress Vanessa Williams released an album by that name in 1992. Other than that, I’d say the rest is accurate.
There are old pilots. There are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots. This is especially true for those willing to fly in a piston single.
Gondorff
I’m going to take exception to this old saw. When I first flew for the USCG in 1980 we were just pushing back the concept that to save lives one had to go out but there was no assurance that one would come home. Having been a Dustoff pilot in Viet Nam ten years earlier I understood the shift. We hung it out pretty far (800+ combat hrs in a year, 90 bullet holes in “my” aircraft in my first 90 days) BUT, we trained, we learned, we flew two pilot so if one was hit the patient survived. We got smart from the blood of our predecessors. In aviation, as Jamies pleasantly written piece points out, we are a breed willing to step out of our comfort zones. HOWEVER… with the passage of 100+ years and technology undreamed of even ten, twenty, fifty years ago, the odds of “coming home” have reduced the risk dramatically. At 76 I can vouch for the fact that aviation is safe enough that we can stretch out a hell of a long stretch and expect to live through it. It’s called learning, paying attention to detail…and, well, continuing to learn. Most of us “older” ( in itself a moving target) folk have, and continue to be “bold” and live in the warm glow of doing kool stuff successfully…IMHO.. LOL 😎. Oh yeah, I used to deliver single engine AG Cats to Surinam….(look it up..).