People only do their best at things they truly enjoy.
Jack Nicklaus
Ageless aviator wisdom
AOPA Pilot magazine magazine has a great article by Dave Hirschman in the April edition about the Mavericks, four Florida pilots who fly formation aerobatics together. They are mostly in their mid-70’s. With long backgrounds in all kinds of flying. Ageless aviators with wisdom to spare:
Just like artists or musicians, we’re constantly striving to master our craft, to try new things, to improve.
Bob Gandt, 75, US Navy, Pan Am & Delta.
I still get a rush of adrenaline whenever we fly.
Ron Keilin, 78, thirty-five years of airshow aerobatic experience.
No two flights are exactly the same. And what you did on your last flight doesn’t mean anything for the next one. There are always ways to improve and more to learn. We pursue perfection, but no one ever quite attains it.
Ron Keilin
Don’t be impressed by total flying hours. Some of the worst pilots I ever flew with were senior airline captains with tens of thousands of hours of flight time.
Bob Gandt
Monomaniacal focus
Monomaniacal focus and ridiculous levels of practice are the tools ordinary performers use to reach mastery.
Robin Sharma.
What is a pilot’s job?
[Mark Vanhoenacker] says his job is not “flying planes”, but “flying planes safely.”
Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot is a new book on the magic of flight by a British Airways 747 pilot. It’s out now in the UK, coming to the US in June. Quote from story in New Statesman.
I have everything to make me glad I am alive
Published in 1913, John Barleycorn is an autobiographical novel by Jack London. Chapter 36 has these wonderful lines. He was ‘bestride’ a horse, but in an airplane the inner game seems the same:
