Light rain is tapping against my office window as I write this. It’s early morning. The sun is just up. In central Florida this is normally the calm period of the day when all is peaceful and calm. But not today. Today, the weather took a turn. 

That’s okay. I planted olive and coffee trees in the yard over the weekend. The rain will do them good.

For flight students, weekend warriors, and low-time VFR pilots, this is the type of day when flights get pushed back or rescheduled to another day. To be honest, there are days very much like this when I cancel my plans to fly and travel instead by surface roads to my destination.

I’ve got nothing to prove. If the weather is beyond the capabilities of my airplane, or if it’s likely to develop into something I would rather not wrestle with, I’m perfectly happy to stay on the ground.

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Imagine, if you will, the perfect flight. The kind of flight where everything works exactly as you planned it would.

You nail your altitude and heading, never wavering by more than 10′ or a single degree. The aircraft works flawlessly. Not a single hiccup. Not even a flirtation with a deviation from the norm. You caught every radio call, answered with clarity and brevity,  including all the pertinent information each time.

The perfect flight from start to finish. 

Now, throw that idea out. The odds of it ever happening are slim.

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Back in my school days, I found it entertaining that we were taught humans reign supreme at the top of the food chain. Even as an adolescent, I knew that was a bunch of nonsense.

Not because I had a deep scientific background or that I’d read extensively from the accumulated knowledge stored in the school’s library. Nope, I knew it was wrong because I’d spent a lot of time in the woods. Sometimes for days on end with nothing more than a pocket knife, a length of rope, and a sheet of polyethylene plastic.

I was, without a doubt, an unusual kid.

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In 1903 Orville and Wilbur flew on strips of ash and “Pride of the West” muslin. Their engine weighed in at an acceptable 180 pounds, producing a barely adequate 12 horsepower.

The engine had no carburetor or fuel metering device as we know them today. Raw gasoline fed into the intake manifold where it hopefully vaporized to mix with the air filling the chamber. A spark was generated by contacts that opened and closed. There’s not a spark plug to be found on that powerplant.

We might see a machine of that description as quaint, or rough, or even amateurish. Certainly, the FAA would be loath to certify such a rag-tag assemblage of parts. But that was the state of the art at the genesis of modern aviation.

We have come a long, long way.

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The human mind is an incredible thing. Given the proper motivation and inspiration, an individual human can invent the seemingly impossible device or pioneer an unprecedented procedure.

Individual men and women, not much different than you or me, have changed the course of human history with little more than a thought, a drive to bring that idea to fruition, and a heaping helping of persistence.

They all failed miserably, by the way. Over and over again, until ultimately they came out on top. There are few great successes that aren’t preceded by a series of failures. That’s what makes these folks worthy of mention in our history books. They are the few. They kept at it. They believed they could achieve their dream in the end. And so they did.

In direct contrast, most of us short-circuit our fondest dreams in favor of something less fulfilling and more traditionally acceptable. We fear being seen as living outside the lines our society, our family, or our friend group sees as normal.

We learn the most debilitatingly short sentence in the English language and we hold it close to our hearts and minds throughout the majority of our lives. It provides protection of a sort. But the shelter we seek is a devious thing. It limits us far more than it protects us.

I can’t.

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I’m willing to bet your family took a few trips when you were a kid. Maybe they were long distance treks of a thousand miles. Maybe they were to the next town. Whatever the case, as a young ‘un stuck in the back seat with a limited view and a limited knowledge of geography, you asked the question parents just hate. “Are we there yet?”

There’s almost never a good answer to that question. Ask it once and you’ll hear something on the order of “Almost” or “Not yet.” Ask it a half dozen times or more and you’ll feel the wrath of a driver who is as aggravated with you as they are with the traffic flowing around them. 

When we’re young, or at least younger than we are now, destinations can be the central focus of any journey. To our unsophisticated mind the only real adventure is to be found at the end of the trip. Everything that happens along the way is just prelude. All those people we encounter, all the sights and sounds and smells we stumble upon are tied up in the tedious and sometimes exasperating necessity of travel. We’re laser focused on the end of the line and miss the majesty of what lies around us. 

Humans are weird like that. 

There is an exception to every rule, of course. And for pilots the exception is the almost total disregard for the end of the line we all face.

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There are certain words we just don’t say at major airports. Words like “bomb,” “hijack,” or “weapon” will quickly get you whisked off to a small room where you’ll face off with folks wearing stern expressions. Even if used in the context of a joke — an obvious joke — you’re still likely to miss your flight, or worse. 

Similarly, pilots learn early in their career that we too have certain words we would be wise to avoid. Words like “stress,” “anxiety,” and “depression” will not relieve us of our troubles. Rather, they’re more likely to add to our woes.

That’s regrettable. 

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