Why do I fly? Hmmm that’s a good one partly both of Whirly’s suggestions. I like machines…well some of ‘em the feeling of sweeping through a series of bends on a motorbike tast a’la café racer or magestically a’la hawg.
The feeling has you shut down the donkey and a boat moves under sail…the as the engine noise dies away and all that remains is the sound of water and the thrumming of the leech (until you pull the leech line). Or the chirp of the main gear on touchdown all incredibly evocative to a saddo like me.
The quiet satisfaction of a turning point or destination turning up where you expect it when you expect it – this is the same no matter if it’s the Lizard after 4 1/2 weeks alone enroute from FL. Or Dungeness power station after a 20 minute murky Channel crossing from Le tooks.
Then again as Evo said there’s not much quite like flying on a pleasant still evening going nowhere just around… throw in a few steep turns and try to hit your own wake. There’s nobody here so why not throw in a few bars of a badly sung song at the same time… climbing on Magee’s ‘laughter silvered wings high in the tumbling mirth’
Knowing that, for now, you are in complete control of your machine yet at the same time in an unforgiving environment that will rise up and smite you without a backward glance.
The look on somebody’s face when you’ve taken them for their first ride in a light aircraft and you know that you’ve just sown the seeds of another pilot
Why are my eyes brown – cause they are
Why am I left handed - cause I am
Why do I fly – cause I do