Got home early today – class ended at about 1100. A guest lecture by Stanford engineering professor Sam Savage. Used to teach OR, wrote one of the best textbooks I’ve ever read on analytical decision making as well as writing some pretty cool software plugins for Excel that allow it to do things Bill Gates had never thought of. Brilliant man and witty too. The two do not always go hand in hand. It’s funny to watch two PhDs interact on screen, especially those who have immersed themselves in the more technical fields, where the answer is either right or it is wrong, and there are no extra credit points for linguistic presentation.
I realized that I have spent the last 18 months of my life pursuing a master’s degree whose chief purpose was to inform me how very much I have to learn.
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So, early to home and the bird dog at least was happy to see me. Took her for a bit of a frolic in the local park. We neither of us get out as often as we ought and, given the way a dog measures her span of years, I do feel a bit guilty at times. She’s not so young, and hasn’t got that many frolics left. As we were walking back to the house, a pair of Marine Hornets from Miramar flew overhead, outbound for the Whiskey Areas off the SoCal coast. They had already pushed out to combat spread from their initial rendezvous, and I thought to myself, “That looks like fun.”
I spent the first few years of non-flying – that’s the way the world is divided by the way: Flying and non-flying – green with envy of those who still managed to worm their way into some Nomex from time to time. Th’ungrateful wretches that they were.
Flying fighters is like a governmen-sponsored crack addiction. Quitting is like going cold turkey, and at first you don’t believe it. It takes a good two years or so at least for the poison to mostly leech out of your veins.
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True Story: I was back in Virginia a few years ago, when I was a squadron XO and full of piss and vinegar. Joined a threesome of retirees – two Navy, one USAF, all fighter guys on the first tee at Army Navy Country Club (Fairfax). Late June, it was already hot, even as early as it was in the day. We exchanged bios briefly, walking down the fairways. Two of them had flown Phantoms, one had flown Tomcats and we knew some of the same folks. Although successful in their new lives, they were all a bit envious of me that I was still flying. I sort of pitied them as “use-to-be’s”.
We were all in shorts and I noticed that, like me, none of them had much in the way of leg hair at sock level or below. Twenty years or so of wearing flight boots mostly rubs that fur out.
It leaves a mark.
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So anyway, there I was looking up at them – not with envy this time, but something more akin to professional introspection – and I thought to myself, “You know, it really isn’t fun for them, not just yet. They’re just flying in formation, just clearing away from the ground. The lead is thinking about traffic and comm shifts and what he ought to be doing next, trying to stay ahead not only of his airplane, but of his wingman’s too. The wingie is working his butt off to remain in perfect position, working through his combat checklist and checking every item on it twice. He’s trying to anticipate what it is his lead will do next, because that’s a great way to get through his upgrade process with minimum fuss once the time comes. It also helps him to be a “good wingman,” alert to his lead’s demands, ready to answer them instantaneously. Which sound like faint praise to Type-A personalities unfamiliar with tactical aviation. But trust me, those who know the business realize that a good wingman is a pearl beyond price.
Soon though, they would be cleared to climb, enter the area, get set up. Brawl.
That’s when the fun begins, and it’s not the kind of fun that comes with riding a roller coaster or having a laugh with a friend at a party where the mood’s just right. It’s a different kind of fun entirely, a savage, hurtling joy that is not much removed from embottled rage. It comes from a dark and heady place, as internally primitive as the environment is technologically advanced. It is expressionless.
You have never looked at anything with the same terrible and fixed intensity as that wingman will regard his lead, nor the lead his wingman in return. Never looked into the face of the one you love, nor the babe there in your arms with the same degree of enthrallment. There will be quick head snaps inside the cockpit to check parameters – altitude and airspeed, it is shameful to have been thought a cheat – but mostly they will squint at each other with lidless concentration until the lead calls, “Lead’s speed and angels set.”
“Two’s speed and angels set.”
“Fight’s on.”
And then you shove the throttles into afterburner, and wind it up and see just what the other guy has in mind. Oh, yeah. That’s where the fun begins.
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Short, I know, but time presses in. Have a great weekeend!
Damn, you’re making ME miss flying
Lex, you don’t get any flight time at all now? I thought you could still snivel some stick time to maintain profiency? Gotta be like cutting the flight wings on a hawk…
“those who know the business realize that a good wingman is a pearl beyond price.”
And a bad one, a hazard to life and limb.
Nose
I too am sans hair from the sock line down.
The day you quit learning is the day they pat you with a shovel.
And here I thought it was because my college football trainer used to tape my ankles an inch above the shaved line, regardless of high I shaved them.
“terrible fixed intensity”
Pylon turns over a mountainside that might hold a crash site. The sun is sinking on the last daylight sortie, the dusk dazzles your eyes. Glancing now at the airspeed, now at the ground, now at the attitude indicator, now at the ground, holding a moment longer to catch that one flash-just one- of crumpled aluminum under fading light inthe trees and punch the mark button on the GPS. Turn too steep and you’ll lose lift and stall. Turn too shallow and you can’t see. Get too far from the mountain wall and you won’t find them. Get too close and you’ll join them. Back pressure on the yoke, turning, turning in a funnel of focused longing.
Out of time, out of turning radius, out of altitude, out of choices. Level the wings and turn back. Tell yourself you did the right thing for your crew. Log the time on your kneeboard. Start breathing normal again.
Wish that nobody was still alive looking back up at you with the same pleading hope that you were looking down with for them. Pray that you didn’t let anyone down. Because right now you just don’t know.
“I realized that I have spent the last 18 months of my life pursuing a master?
“I realized that I have spent the last 18 months of my life pursuing a master’s degree whose chief purpose was to inform me how very much I have to learn.”
Just in case someone might think that to be a Bad Thing(tm), that’s been my experience after putting in a lot of effort for an extended period of learning in a new area.
When you’ve reached the goal you had set out for yourself, if it was worth doing, it’s like opening the shuttered windows to see that there’s a whole new world out there, beckoning you to come out and play.
Mind, sometimes it wants to play rough, but still…
Lex,
I’d say that the feeling you described is much the same that I felt right before and during a high risk entry while serving a felony warrant.
The stack, the breach, flashbangs, and you’re in.
While it wasn’t flying, a well trained team member that you’ve worked with for a long time is also a “pearl beyond price.” In fact I’ve had my bacon saved a time or two by a great team member.
I’m willing to bet that the same people that make great fighter pilots, if they didn’t become pilots, would be just as home on a SWAT team as in a jet. Once you’re addicted to it you hate to let it slip away as you move onto other things in life.
V5
Hornets are so common here at PAX I only look up when it’s a really a loudly painful Growler or SuperHornet.
Nah- gotta admit I keep an eye on the sky to watch anything flying- that scary V-22 with all them moving parts, those taildraggers we have at TPS for towing gliders, that little Cobra, or those Hornets doing a fan break.. Sometimes I even get to see a T-38 or T-2 (believe it or not) flying chase on an E-2 or some such.
Looking, never goes away (I hope) for a couple things in life…
re that sock line theory from a SE major: Maybe that theory could be expanded to explain the baldness so rampant in our aviation peers. Helmet on-off friction being the culprit o’course.
I must be an aberration- HA.
b2
“I realized that I have spent the last 18 months of my life pursuing a master?
“I realized that I have spent the last 18 months of my life pursuing a master’s degree whose chief purpose was to inform me how very much I have to learn.”
I’ve decided that, at least for engineering, a degree just is a means to give you a start at gaining sufficient background to become an engineer, if you choose to do that. for me, engineering is about spending a good part of your day being confused. If you’re not occasionally confused, or at least uncertain, you’re not pushing hard enough and your results will be, at best, adequate. You can keep your job with adequate but it’s not very interesting and is mostly just treading water.
Many years ago it dawned on me that I’ll never know all, or even a lot of the answers. I also realized that it doesn’t matter. Usually, getting the answer to a question is fairly easy. The hard part is coming up with the right questions.
Dang, Lex! Good writin’, and good analogy too! I reckon any airplane you could get into with yer own money would be like weak coffee compared to cocaine, to continue the analogy. We had a next-door neighbor once who was an ex-F-105 pilot, with whom I discussed the fun of flying, a bit. We decided, I think, that there just ain’t no substitute for the high-energy stuff, once you’ve been spoiled by it.
Damn’ Gummint! Won’t let private citizens have jet fighters, even if they *can* afford the gas!
Oh, and;
“There’s a lot of love in boxing.” – Robert Grave
Dammit, Robert Grave*S*… Who’s truncating my comments, here?. I thought only Blogger did that.. (extra periods added to be sacrificed to the bad software)..
It has often been said, “The difference between a wise man and a foolish man is the wise man knows that he knows not and the foolish man knows not that he knows not.” The second is a paraphrase of old Proverb, “A fool is a man who speaks much about that which he knows little.” Lex, You have done well, Sir. Have a GREAT DAY and WEEK!” Enjoy yourself! Grumpy
Grumpy – You remind me of Rummy’s famous line:
There are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns.
The media laughed themselves sick over it. Why? I don’t know. It makes perfect sense to me.