Tybee's 'Control Tower' and a group of grounded pilots
When I went to flight school, there were two very different sets of learning both of which are needed in order to become good pilots. We had to learn to fly based on instruments plus outside visuals, and we had to learn to fly on instruments alone.
A strange thing can happen when you are flying and you cannot see outside due to clouds or fog. You cannot tell if you are going up or down. There is suspicion that that is what happened to John F. Kennedy, Jr. when his plane tragically went down. He could not see outside his plane, something happened to his instruments so he could not read them accurately, and he thought he was going up when he actually was headed straight for the water.
To me, learning to fly is the same as learning to live. When you are in a fog, and you can get no external referrents as to what to do, you rely on your own internal instrumentation, your intuition and your instincts, if you will. You must learn to do that, and you must practice it to get really good at it. There are decision points in life when much is hanging in the balance, and you feel that hesitance because you cannot strictly speaking read what is best to do based on outer signatures of logic and reasoning, much less listening to what others recommend. In the final analysis, we alone are responsible for carving our path. That may sound kind of desolate and lonely but in truth, it is what makes life such an achingly marvelous adventure.
If you are in a fog, may I recommend, if you have the luxury of some time, make an inner journey to get your bearings. Meditate, contemplate, space out, space in, day dream, do anything that keeps you from thinking. If you have to act quickly, you can actually bypass logic and dive directly into your inner knowing. Heroes who save people by acting instantaneously do this all the time. That is flying by instruments alone. It is very exhilarating.
If we have 'snow days', time outs due to snow, I think it makes perfect sense to also have 'fog days' as well. After obscurity comes clarity. It is a rule of life, so say I. Flying taught me this truth.
A strange thing can happen when you are flying and you cannot see outside due to clouds or fog. You cannot tell if you are going up or down. There is suspicion that that is what happened to John F. Kennedy, Jr. when his plane tragically went down. He could not see outside his plane, something happened to his instruments so he could not read them accurately, and he thought he was going up when he actually was headed straight for the water.
To me, learning to fly is the same as learning to live. When you are in a fog, and you can get no external referrents as to what to do, you rely on your own internal instrumentation, your intuition and your instincts, if you will. You must learn to do that, and you must practice it to get really good at it. There are decision points in life when much is hanging in the balance, and you feel that hesitance because you cannot strictly speaking read what is best to do based on outer signatures of logic and reasoning, much less listening to what others recommend. In the final analysis, we alone are responsible for carving our path. That may sound kind of desolate and lonely but in truth, it is what makes life such an achingly marvelous adventure.
If you are in a fog, may I recommend, if you have the luxury of some time, make an inner journey to get your bearings. Meditate, contemplate, space out, space in, day dream, do anything that keeps you from thinking. If you have to act quickly, you can actually bypass logic and dive directly into your inner knowing. Heroes who save people by acting instantaneously do this all the time. That is flying by instruments alone. It is very exhilarating.
If we have 'snow days', time outs due to snow, I think it makes perfect sense to also have 'fog days' as well. After obscurity comes clarity. It is a rule of life, so say I. Flying taught me this truth.
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