Why I Fly

Today was a really good day in the airplane for me. I went up to practice some of the maneuvers that I'm worried about and did them really well. At least, well enough... I think... to pass the checkride. I also made five pretty good landings, which allowed me to reach a tiny milestone. I have now made 200 landings.

So that's what's going on with my flying. What I wanted to write about is a question that a few people have asked me when they find out that I am learning to fly. They ask, why I fly. I really haven't been about to find the words really. I mean, other than for as long as I can remember, when I've been in an airliner I spend most of my time looking out the window. There is also a sense of exhilaration as I fly and see the world from a perspective that not many see. There is also the challenge of it...planning a flight, finding your way without roads, using nothing more than some checkpoints on a chart and a compass. But that answer doesn't really capture the essence of what it means to me to fly. It tells only part of the story, but doesn't really capture how I really feel. At least, until I saw the YouTube video embeded below. Harrison Ford became a private pilot several years ago and he put into a few short words, near the beginning of the video, exactly what I couldn't express before.

So, here it is... here's the reason I love flying... from Harrison Ford's "Just a Pilot" short:

Up here I don't think much about except flying.... what my duties and responsibilities are, and everything else just kind of falls away....

Everything else just falls away. It fixes a lot of things. A bad day at work. A bad day at home.... No worries... everything else just falls away.

Updated Pilot Log