Author: Dave English

I can’t get no

By Dave English

“I was never satisfied with simply doing well. Even after getting a good result in a test or a flight, if I’d made a mistake I would want to fix that mistake and ensure I got it perfect for the next time. Back in our quarters I would run my own debrief. I’d go through a flight over and over, thinking through what I should’ve done and reinforcing in my mind what I would do in the future. I was very big into visualising — replaying a sight picture over and over the way it should unfold — and inevitably … Continue reading I can’t get no

Richard Bach on flying’s core

By Dave English

New Richard Bach words on flying! He’s owned 41 planes, flew jets in the USAF, and as West Coast editor of Flying magazine saw loads more. I asked him what’s core to flying them all? “Flying all these aircraft is based on one single prayer that will never come true: Please let me become the sky. From 10 mph in a paraglider to Mach 2 in an F-106 waits the same feeling. Surrounded by forever in the center of the sky, we yearn to become that foreverness, ourselves. Some say that’s so, that our spirit lives forever. Flying is the … Continue reading Richard Bach on flying’s core

Magnifying and analyzing

By Dave English

Do you fly and say ‘not bad, pretty good‘, or do you fly and then honestly debrief yourself on every action, every decision? Commander Victor Glover became a fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut by not accepting ‘pretty good’ and going home. (Original photo NASA, at the Houston neutral bounancy tank, 2015. Quote from Mens Health magazine, March 2018)