Positional Distortion

Part I: “Why do you do it?”

A fair question, and one that all of us are bound to hear sooner or later, regardless of context. Lately, this question has been put to me with increasing regularity, usually in reaction to my decision to pursue getting a pilot’s license. The subtext is hard to miss: flying is dangerous and scary. True, it goes without saying that fear and flying are not an altogether uncommon pairing. So what gives?

Not to sidestep the question, but I’m compelled to answer with a story, a story that is as much about flight as it is about fear.

In terms of normal flight, what transpired was far from what most consider appealing. If you’re familiar with the term ‘stall,’ congratulations, you understand one of fundamental states of flight that make it the imperfectable human endeavor that it is. If you count yourself among this crowd, then you might also appreciate the severity of the typically unwelcome maneuver called a ‘spin.’

If, by good chance, you don’t know anything about flight beyond big planes, terminals, and overly friendly security guards, then I humbly encourage you to exercise your imagination for a moment. Think of a small plane mid-flight. The sky is blue and the air crisp. Both the pilot and copilot are smiling, one because the experience is new and exciting, the other because it is his to share. Now point your imaginary plane towards the ground and rotate it violently. If alarms are going off in your imaginary plane then you’ve successfully pictured a spin.

Let’s stop for a second. I would now recommend you throw that image in your brain’s recycle bin - it definitely won’t do you much good next time you fly Jet Blue to visit family.

Gone? Good, now back to my story.

Things not going according to plan on that first flight had an impact on me, and it had an impact on my instructor. The result of which is that he now makes all of his students do stall and spin recovery training with a qualified stunt pilot prior to obtaining their license.

This, finally, brings me to the primary substance of my story, and the operative thread which I hope will ultimately answer why I’ve chosen to put myself, with surprising regularity, inside a metal object five thousand feet above the safe but unforgivably distant ground below.

To be continued in Part II, “Most of the time we fly in circles.”