Not up on a shelf

By Dave English

“I want to live everyday all days as hard as I can. We party hard, we love hard, we jump hard because we’re reminded way too often that it can end like that.

We’re very aware of how precious life is. What a gift it is. So we use it. It’s not up on a shelf still in its bubble wrap. Ours is all beat up and thrown in the corner. It’s good. You should use something that you cherish.”

Jimmy Pouchert, interview at the very end of the 2024 move Fly. He died BASE jumping in 2021.

The whole documentary is a celebration of flying and living. And an exploration of risk. Jimmy Pouchert left us this youtube video of an amazing wingsuit jump.

Sooner or later

By Dave English

“If you’re going to go to the Moon, sooner or later you’ve got to go to the Moon.”

Flight Director Glynn Linney, summing up the rationale for the Apollo 8 ‘go’ decision, NASA meetings, 1968. Quoted in the 2019 book Shoot for the Moon.

This was a huge decision, a quantum step from Earth orbit flights.  Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence going out into deep space, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth. The three astronauts were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise. 240,000 miles outside of Earth orbit. Amazing.

While NASA had carefully planned and prepared for this mission, it was still a massive leap. But some things can’t be done in small incremental steps, sometimes, sooner or later, you have to to the moon.

It’s a great book, outstanding in a crowded field. Shoot for the Moon: How the Moon Landings Taught us the 8 Secrets fo Success, Richard Wiseman, 2019.

It seemed the aircraft was almost …

By Dave English

“As we took to the skies it seemed the aircraft was almost an extension of his body, carving its way over the water and through the air as if it already knew what inputs came next.”

Niki Britton, describing Aaron Singer fly a seaplane over San Francisco. AOPA Pilot magazine, October 2024.


It’s what good flying looks like.