Thought the posting of a poem above was entirely appropriate. Pilots - indeed all military men and women, I suspect, have the soul of a poet within them somewhere. The one below has always been a favourite of mine. When the cab's are u/s - again. Or the FRBs are not co-operating (surely not!). Or there is just one more duty to complete. Or a million and one other pieces of tedium with which to deal, WE know that we have only to get airborne to feel the unconfined joy that is so eloquently written here. The sentiments are undimmed with the passage of time or the march of technology. They are as poignant today as they were when they were penned in WWII - and penned by another lad you did not, eventually, come home...
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee