A dispiriting pall descends once more as it has often times past, for here we have a recurrent, grim reaperish curse. Nothing, but nothing, will ever drive it home to every single pilot, or pilot in the making, a complete and deeply personal understanding of the shocking price foolhardiness will exact for some, some day.
"Stay safe." "Drive safe." "Fly safe." At times how pitifully hollow the catch phrases ring.
"So long digger. Keep your powder dry." Then off he goes, to spread himself across the landscape. It's more than sad. It sickens and dismays to the very core. A cloud comes down and no birds sing.
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains some minutes past, and Lethe-wards had sunk."
Let the last item of the pre take-off self-brief be -
"Occasion no grief to any living soul."