It’s about heart, not heft

In my teens it became apparent that I suffered from a fairly serious case of wanderlust. I often wanted to be elsewhere. And that elsewhere very well might be 1,000 miles away.

My limitation was a common one. I was broke. Or nearly broke. My early career experiences of washing dishes in restaurants and doing minor maintenance at local garages wasn’t exactly making me rich. I didn’t even own a car. Rather, I had put together a down payment on a brand new, 1978 Yamaha XS400 motorcycle. The payments were manageable for a machine that sipped just the slightest bit of fuel while opening up the American roadways to me.

In the late 1970s my goal was to move to Southern California. My master plan had me starting a band and living the good life. Dream big, I say.

That original quest involved a good friend from high school. We threw together a few dollars and bought a well-used, high mileage, barely functional station wagon. We were headed for the Golden State, right after we fixed a small mountain of mechanical issues that required repair.

The best of plans don’t always work out the way we hope. My good friend, who is still a good friend nearly half a century later, bowed out of the trip only two days before we were scheduled to depart. He met a girl.

For a 19-year-old boy, “I met a girl” is universally understood as more important and life altering than anything else likely to come our way. I understood. Plan A was dead.

That scenario left me with two possible options. Scuttle my plans and stay in New England or load up the Yamaha to make the trip on my own.

I chose the latter.

Now, this decision was not without its detractors. More than one close acquaintance pointed out that I might be nuts. Strapping my most precious belongings to a motorcycle that produced fewer than 40 hp, saddling up and heading west for a couple thousand miles was likely to kill the bike, if it didn’t kill me in the process.

At least that was the conventional thinking of the day. It’s probably worth mentioning that it was January, too. Not exactly motorcycle weather in the Northeastern United States.

Well, I went. I didn’t get all the way to California on that trip. But I did make it to Florida, where I found a home, landed two minimum wage jobs simultaneously, and thought I’d fallen into paradise.

No regrets at all. Not a one.

This same tendency others have to discourage friends and family from seeking great adventure spills over into aviation as well. I’ve experienced it firsthand.

The belief is often expressed that those of us with a penchant for travel aren’t well enough prepared, or funded, or that we’re operating machines that were never meant to fly such a distance.

Poppycock, I say. Absolute nonsense. And that’s not just my individual opinion. There’s historical precedence to back up my perspective. Go, I say. Live your dreams as best you can.

There is little doubt Cal Rodgers happened onto a plethora of nay sayers as he planned his flight from New York to California in 1911. The negative Nellies had a point. Nobody had ever flown from coast-to-coast before. Aviation was too new. The aircraft were too flimsy. And what kind of daredevil commits to a journey of thousands of miles when a trip of just 100 miles is considered to be extremely hazardous? He’d only earned his pilot certificate the month before, after all. His inexperience was undeniable.

Cal did it, though. He sought fame and fortune like so many young men have over the years. He found the fame. The fortune eluded him. But he made the flight with only 70 intermediate stops. Most involving an accident of some sort.

It wasn’t an easy trip. But it was a success. One some of us still ponder and celebrate today, more than 100 years later.

My flying career has been long and thoroughly satisfying. Yet I’ve spent the vast majority of it, almost all of it in fact, in small, low-horsepower, two-seat aircraft that are typically seen as trainers.

I do not consider that to be a less than ideal circumstance. I like those little airplanes. They fit my budget. They satisfy my quest for adventure. They’re relatively easy to fly, and maintain, and store until the next flight.

It’s not the heft of the machine that makes adventure possible, it’s the heart of the participant.

I’ve flown over half of the United States at or around 2,000 feet AGL, marveling at the view of forests and fields and oceans below me. I’ve seen mountains and flatlands slip toward my tail. Tiny hamlets far from any large population center have come into view, as have some of the largest cities in the world as I glide by on my way to somewhere special.

I’ve been fortunate enough to land on grass fields in multiple states, and I’ve alighted on the massive paved runway the Space Shuttle used at Cape Canaveral.

Adventure has been had. My life, as well as my passengers, have been enriched and expanded by the experiences we’ve had in small flying machines — the exact machines that are too often perceived as common, underpowered, unexciting, and even dull. Yet, they’ve filled my life with excitement and wonder as I’ve seen so much of the country from low altitude at slow airspeeds.

Along the way I’ve found out something about myself as well. Something worth knowing. Something that can’t be put into words but can be felt deeply and with great pride.

I am so thankful for the ride. I wouldn’t have it any other way.