As pilots our mission is not to fight the power and push back against regulatory agencies to prove our infallibility. Rather, it is to train, to learn, to practice, to put our safety and the safety of others at the top of our personal checklist. To do all that we can to enhance safety while mitigating risk.
Politics for Pilots
A little empathy goes a long way
When you get right down to it, the airport manager slot is a service position, not all that different from the one a kid has when they get their first job working in the food service industry. But while the kid eats the food his restaurant serves, more often than not the airport manager does not utlilize the services their facility offers.
The one sheet wonder
I would suggest we are one sheet of paper away from grabbing their attention in a meaningful way.
Membership has its privileges
I spent the first portion of my career as a complete independent. I was completely solo. I didn’t belong to any organization, association, or group that required membership. That decision felt right. It wasn’t.
Sights, sounds, and connections that last
The machinery of the air fascinates me. It always has. What I didn’t expect — what I didn’t realize at all until I got into aviation on a full-time basis — is that the people who live in this world are even more compelling than the machinery they fly and maintain.
Keeping the record straight
My paper logbooks hold an emotional connection to a lifetime of effort. Notes in the margins tell the tale of wonderful flights and at least a couple terrifying incidents. They carry the signatures of pilots I’ve flown with and respect. Some are gone now. Some remain friends.
Challenge accepted
Most of us did not become pilots to expand the limits of science or technology. We took that leap in an effort to expand our own horizons. To learn new skills, adapt to new information, and accept the challenge of taking fate for a walk around the block to see if we could perform at a level few ever attempt.
An intellectual wandering
Because of its incredible pace of improvement, aviation is perhaps the best example of how the impossible becomes possible.
Jumping for joy
Flying still fills me with a sense of awe. Even after all these years I have never become blasé about the moment the wheels get light and the wings take the load uphill. I’m acutely aware that I am nothing more than an average human being, well out of my element. On my own I have no business being thousands of feet in the air, cruising along at speeds my ground-bound counterparts can only dream of as they sit in traffic.