So What's the Attraction, then?

[The African Dude]

So,

What a beautiful day in London.. Looking through a top window in a Brunel University engineering block I can see LHR and the hills to the south. In fact, the visibility seems superb. What was the view like upstairs today?

What's the attraction then? Is it the view? The lifestyle - be it well-paid or relatively poorly so? I can't imagine yet - but one day I'm sure I will know.

What do you think? What does the flying mean to you, at the very heart of it?

interested :)

Andy

[flufdriver]

Well, African Dude, its like this:

For me it started around about 1952 - 53, my Uncle used to take my cousin and me to near the airport fence in Kloten and we watched the Connie's coming in and going out. That started a dream. Then came the time around 1970 when I had enough funds to take flying lessons, that's when it really happened, my instructor a retired US test pilot, said to me one day that I seemed to have "a knack" for it, which was a revelation to me, since I had no idea and was totally engrossed in the flying of the C-150.

The realisation that I might be able to fulfill my boyhood dream was such a strong force that it became my singular focus and history will confirm that I can be a quite determined individual even if I do say so myself.

In any event, it wasn't an easy road but certainly an interesting one. Now, having around 15000 hrs and risen from a Student Pilot to Flight Instructor to Charter Pilot to an F/O slot on a BAC 1-11, then on to the B 727, then becoming a skipper and now flying the B-737, starting from the very bottom of the seniority list, becoming involved in forming the first pilot union at our company then slowly rising all the way to the Chief Pilots position and now just flying the line once again. I have flown the C-150, 172, 180, 336, 402, 414, Piper Apache and Aztec, Beech D-18, Travelair, Queen-air. Aerocommander 560, 580 & 581, De Havilland Dove and Heron and a few touches on a DC-3 compliments of one of my colleagues. Britten Norman Islander & Trislander, the following Jets: BAC 1-11/500, B- 727 100 & 200 B- 737 200, 300 ,400.

I think l have seen my fair share of good and bad in this industry, but one thing remains the same; you take off under an overcast and climb out and suddenly you shoot through that deck of cloud into the brilliant sunshine, if you can, you level off and accelerate just above that layer and enjoy the sensation of speed and freedom, because you realize that all those earthbound fellow humans are trapped in that grey world below the clouds, while you have been allowed to break free.

I've got a few more years to go before mandatory retirement, I just hope that the industry will last that long, as it looks right now that does not appear to be a certainty. I will try to continue enjoying those parts of aviating that I can.

[Pub User]

I'm not normally the poetic sort, but this poem contains an awful lot of the fantasy of flight, in just a few lines:

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, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never Lark, or even Eagle flew -
And while with silent lifting mind, I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God

Several months after he wrote the poem, Jon Magee died in a mid-air collision, aged 19.

[brain fade]

like you, dude, I too like to look out the window. and make the horizon all tippy.
It's a simple pleasure and not easy to tell;)

[ATPMBA]

Pilots fly because it gives them a euphoric feeling.:cool:

[SOPS]

If you have to ask, you will NEVER understand:O

[GlueBall]

Flufdriver: Well said! :ok:

[Miserlou]

And, Mr Digby, he was a plagiarist!

Never liked the poem but the original, the one he copied, is better.

John Denver's song "The Eagle and the Hawk" is better by far. Here is the text though words are a poor relation to music.

"I am the eagle,
I live in high country,
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky.

I am the hawk
And there's blood on my feathers,
The time is still turning, they soon wil be dry.

And all those who see me,
And all who believe in me.
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly!

Come dance with the west winds,
And touch on the mountain tops.
Sail o'er the canyons,
And up to the stars.

And reach for the heavens,
And hope for the future,
And all that we can be,
Not just what we are!"

Beautiful music, real lump in throat stuff!

[Firestorm]

It is just the coolest job in the world.

Two moments that light my fires though.

When you take off in to an overcast morning, pick up some ice and then start to see the disk of ths sun, bust in and out of the tops, and then punch out the aouto pilot, and slow the rate of climb to scud bust in the sunrise just for a minute. You can feel and see the speed. And to see the sun at that time, when the rest of the world is still nose down in its' cornflakes, and probably won't see the sun all day is a feeling that makes your chest swell, and your soul glow with honour and a sense of priveledge and awe. You just feel a kind of chi, and that the world is a good place. It takes about a minute, feels like 10, and lasts all day!

The second moment is on those gin-clear days, when a high pressure system is building, before the haze gets trapped. As you get into the cruise, complete the checklists and plogs and radio chatter, as the cabin crew hands you a coffee and a biscuit, and your view is of the world spread out below like a picnic blanket. In the UK on such days you can see from coast to coast: awesome. The feelings and emotions are the same as previously described, and I can't think of many better. It is spiritual.

So Andy. That's what it's all about for me. If you could bottle it, it would be priceless. If you could use it as treatment for anything at all it would be beyond that. Yes, I enjoy battling a cross wind to minimums on dark and sh!tty nights, and being held up high, and chucking the aeroplane down for a late descent, and all the other stuff, but the moments that make me feel glad to be Alive are those two.

[heavy glider]

i agree, some of the things we get to see are truly amazing. getting up at 4 am and going to work in the freezing cold becomes worthwhile when you are sipping a coffee and looking out at the streak of orange and red that occurs just before sunrise up above. Flying over mountain ranges with huge lightening storms in the distance is an incredible view as well. We get to live our dream, and we get paid for it too, quite well in most cases. Perfect!

[Northern Highflyer]

SOPS is spot on, and firestorm too with the spiritual comment

I remember going on a 737 to Alicante at the age of 4 and taking a look at the flightdeck (how many kids are now missing out on that experience ?) and I was hooked.
Everyone said it was a boyhood dream, like wanting to be a fireman, but the feeling never died.

Unlike most on here I am still a wannabe/gonnabe. My ambition to make it to the top has had a few setbacks over the years but still the desire burns. When I have a S**T day in my current job I just think of flying, read a magazine or look out the window at the a/c intercepting the ILS into Leeds and smile. Flying is better than any drug at giving me a buzz and every flight I make is as special as the first. Even at 2000ft in my PA28 Trundling around Northern England I feel much the same emotions as the comments already made on here.

Reading some of the posts on this thread sets my mind off again, thinking, dreaming. My current 9-5 mon-fri job is ok but if I was flying I wouldn't mind what hours I was doing or where I was going.

Like many wannabes/gonnabes I am starting my ATPL studies later this year, even in the current climate. Some may think I am totally crazy or have too much money (I wish).

It's something in the soul, you either love it or hate it and I am prepared to do what it takes. Theres nothing else on this planet I would be prepared to get into so much debt over. It's a huge gamble but one I know I HAVE take. To not fly is not an option in my book.

[wobblyprop]

as a skipper i know said to me

You're in the best restaurant in the world. Where else can you sit, eat and watch the beautiful landscape roll under your wings.

Even in the piper i fly at the moment, I know what he's talking about. Of course, I have to make do with homemade sandwiches.