Flying

   I love to fly. I like just about anything when it comes to airplanes. I love to watch them land. I love to watch them take off. I love to watch ground crew members swarming around them after they've landed to get them ready to head up again. Really the only things that I don't like are security and not having a window seat. I've learned how to deal with that.
   I have always said that if you want to teach a child about physics, teach them about airplanes. It's amazing. You have this large, extremely heavy steel vehicle that is able to move high in the sky at speeds of several hundred miles an hour. Somehow it is able to cheat the law of gravity which seems to be the only law that everyone has to obey and no one can repeal. (I've probably just frightened those of you who are more timid flyers.) The way a plane is able to stay up is all physics. It has to do with getting the right ground speed at takeoff and having the wings set at just the right angle to get the lift that takes it off the ground. The same is true at landing. The pilot has to be able to slow the plane, drop the altitude and do so in a controlled fashion so the plane touches down without tearing the landing gear off.
   All aircraft, with the exception of helicopters who cheat gravity in a different fashion, work the same way. Those jet pilots that you see landing on aircraft carriers do the same thing as a person piloting a small two seater.
   Whenever I get off a plane I always take a peek into the cockpit if the door is open. There is a huge array of different instruments that pilots use to fly a plane. I would like to be able to sit in the cockpit and just watch them work. I would even be happy watching the pilot of a smaller airplane fly.
   Since this is never going to happen, I have to content myself with the view. It's very odd. I'm afraid of heights, yet I like to look out the window of an airplane in flight. There' something about 10,000 feet or more that gives me a whole different perspective on things. I like to fly over fields and wonder what the farmers are growing and if their crops are doing well. I like to fly over houses and wonder what is going on inside. I fly over roads and see streams of cars going this way and that. I look down on the earth in wonder at the big picture that is in front of me. It makes my problems seem rather small.
  Sometimes there are clouds. I always thought that clouds were like large balls of cotton in the sky. When you are up in a plane you realize that they are not. It's just like fog on the ground, which can be sort of disappointing. Then you get above the clouds and the sun is shining. The sun is always above the clouds. It is always shining. The first time I flew above the clouds it was one of those "light bulb moments" for me. The clouds only block the view of the sun and some of it's warmth and light. It does not remove the sun. The sun is still there. If you get above the clouds you can see the sun. When I'm going through a hard time,I tell myself that these are clouds. There are not solid and they are not permanent. Eventually they will dissipate and the sun will shine again. Until then I just have to be patient and do whatever I need to do.
  I think this is why pilots are so passionate about flying. They may eventually be unable to fly, but they never seem to lose their love for being up in the air. They never seem to lose that itch, that desire to get behind the controls and fly even when they are in a place in their lives when it is not safe to do so.
   I never understood it before, but now I do.......