FLYING PURPOSEFULLY

In July I wrote a 1000 word oped for the general media (Why is the CAA grounding planes) on the CAA’s resurrection of the idiotic 12 year rule. In it I felt I had to note that general aviation is not just a hobby for the rich.

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I said, “General aviation may be perceived by some as a rich “weekend warrior” hobby — but the industry is far bigger than that. It trains airline pilots, its enables food security by crop spraying, it fights forest fires, it provides life-or-death helicopter rescue — the list is endless.”

I felt I needed to say this partly because a somewhat jaded pilot friend of mine once said that; ‘General Aviation is a solution — looking for a problem.’

Which all made me think about why we fly. A while ago I had a minor epiphany about flying — it gives us the freedom to move vertically.

The ability to move readily in three dimensions is extraordinarily rare — being limited almost exclusively to flying and scuba diving. Personally I prefer the freedom that flying gives, as scuba diving is wet, cold and claustrophobic. But then I'm biased.

Too many people set themselves the goal of getting a private pilot's licence, but then once they have it, they lose interest. They get tired of pounding around the circuit or going for ‘$100 hamburgers’.

A while ago I was strolling down the main road in Kalk Bay looking forward to a large vanilla ice cream with a Flake in a chocolate cone. I bumped into a chap who had given me a lapel badge that said, 'Live Vertically'. I asked him what he meant by living vertically.

He said the problem with living on Earth is that we are essentially living our lives in two dimensions. We can go forward and back, and left and right. But we seldom if ever take the time to stop and drill down to experience the richness of life.

He shared how he had taken a road trip of just a hundred kilometres to Greyton. He did not just get in his car and drive there, he took the time to explore as many of the side roads as he could. The experiences he gained are much deeper and thus richer, than those who simply get in and go, with a destination fixation.