Where has my passion gone?
I quite like the analogy of loving a Ford Fiesta, the getting bored with it and loving your MX5, then getting bored etc etc. But for me aviation is different, I have circumnavigated the World, flow faster than the speed of sound... at low level!, and have gone to war in my jet.
Now, I just love to tootle along in my little Bulldog at 100 kts, on my way to Kemble or somewhere just for lunch.
Is there anything wrong with that?
Now, I just love to tootle along in my little Bulldog at 100 kts, on my way to Kemble or somewhere just for lunch.
Is there anything wrong with that?
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Flying is the opposite of Sex.
I'm with SSD on this one, any flying is better than no flying, exactly the same as sex.
I think you need to take a very close look at your priorities!
apart from 'Shaggy' there has been no talk here as yet about the wealth of wonderful literature at our disposal concerning flight and fliers, and how this for many pilots is a tried and proven way of keeping the flame alive, may I butt in with some thoughts about Richard Bach?
Bach is a widely read man, himself, and by those reading his books.
He once wrote an evocative essay that he called 'The pleasure of their company'. It became a chapter in 'A Gift of Wings'. What he has to say is based on his reading and his insights into the characters of the fliers whose books most inspired him. They, everyone one of them, helped him to retain and rekindle his passion. This is something that our young wavering pilot of nineteen might care to look into.
Bach opens his account by imagining flying with David Garnett, an English pilot of great sensitivity and an author who in his book 'A Rabbit in the Air',
encapsulated his passion. Bach goes on to say that he has done a lot of flying with this soft-spoken fellow, that "in this day of few real friends, when a man is fortunate to go past three counting them, David Garnett is a real friend.
We like the same things: the sky, the wind, the sun; and when you fly with someone who puts his value on the same things that you do, you can say that he is a friend. Anyone else in that Gipsy Moth, bored by the sky,would no more have been a friend than that businessman twelve rows down the aisle of a 707, though we share our flying a thousand times."
"In a way, I know Garnett even better than his own wife knows him, for she can never quite understand why he wants to throw hours away in that noisy, windswept biplane that sprays oil back into your face. I do understand why.
But the most curious thing about David Garnett is that though we have done a lot of flying together and though I know him very well, I have no idea what the man looks like, or even if he is still alive. The talks we have had and the places to which we have flown have all been between the battered covers of his book 'A Rabbit in the Air', published in London in 1932."
Bach concludes by reflecting that "the David Garnetts and the Saint Exes and the Bert Styles, ('Serenade to the Big Bird'), are not flesh and are not paper.
They are a special way of thinking, much like our own way of thinking, perhaps, but still, like the little prince's fox, unique in all the world.
And meaning? These men, the only part of them that is real and lasting, are alive today. If we seek them out, we can watch with them and laugh with them and learn with them. Their log books melt into ours. Our flying and our living grows richer for knowing them.
The only way that these men can die is for them to be utterly forgotten. We must do for our friends what they have done for us - we must help them to live. On a chance that you may not have met one or two of them, will you allow me the honour of introductions?"
Bach then lists the books of twelve authors of aeronautical note.
Bach is a widely read man, himself, and by those reading his books.
He once wrote an evocative essay that he called 'The pleasure of their company'. It became a chapter in 'A Gift of Wings'. What he has to say is based on his reading and his insights into the characters of the fliers whose books most inspired him. They, everyone one of them, helped him to retain and rekindle his passion. This is something that our young wavering pilot of nineteen might care to look into.
Bach opens his account by imagining flying with David Garnett, an English pilot of great sensitivity and an author who in his book 'A Rabbit in the Air',
encapsulated his passion. Bach goes on to say that he has done a lot of flying with this soft-spoken fellow, that "in this day of few real friends, when a man is fortunate to go past three counting them, David Garnett is a real friend.
We like the same things: the sky, the wind, the sun; and when you fly with someone who puts his value on the same things that you do, you can say that he is a friend. Anyone else in that Gipsy Moth, bored by the sky,would no more have been a friend than that businessman twelve rows down the aisle of a 707, though we share our flying a thousand times."
"In a way, I know Garnett even better than his own wife knows him, for she can never quite understand why he wants to throw hours away in that noisy, windswept biplane that sprays oil back into your face. I do understand why.
But the most curious thing about David Garnett is that though we have done a lot of flying together and though I know him very well, I have no idea what the man looks like, or even if he is still alive. The talks we have had and the places to which we have flown have all been between the battered covers of his book 'A Rabbit in the Air', published in London in 1932."
Bach concludes by reflecting that "the David Garnetts and the Saint Exes and the Bert Styles, ('Serenade to the Big Bird'), are not flesh and are not paper.
They are a special way of thinking, much like our own way of thinking, perhaps, but still, like the little prince's fox, unique in all the world.
And meaning? These men, the only part of them that is real and lasting, are alive today. If we seek them out, we can watch with them and laugh with them and learn with them. Their log books melt into ours. Our flying and our living grows richer for knowing them.
The only way that these men can die is for them to be utterly forgotten. We must do for our friends what they have done for us - we must help them to live. On a chance that you may not have met one or two of them, will you allow me the honour of introductions?"
Bach then lists the books of twelve authors of aeronautical note.
Last edited by Fantome; 1st Jan 2014 at 11:04.
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Great post. To the OP - you should read "A Gift of Wings" and then reflect on your passion or lack of it. If reading it doesn't strike a cord in your heart then you really have lost your passion for flying...
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Originally Posted by Fantome
As no one has made a post here yet about the wealth of wonderful literature at our disposal concerning flight and fliers, and how this for many pilots is a tried and proven way of keeping the flame alive, may I butt in with some thoughts about Richard Bach?
