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| Turning onto final, runway 14, at KSRQ |
That picture is of the final approach back to Sarasota, Florida. It was taken from the back seat of a Cessna 172, being flown by my John B, as PIC (pilot in command) with his flight instructor sitting right seat and observing. I went along for the ride, having sat in on the "cross country navigation" class taught by Universal Flight Training's John Andrews. Sunday morning, I should have been in church, but I had scheduled a flight lesson of my own. In the end, my son took my time slot, and I was happy to be the guy in back, taking pictures and enjoying the ride over to Sebring, Florida and return. It was the highest that JB or I had flown prior to this date, as we went over at 5,500 feet, and came back at 4,500. If you are a FaceBook friend, go there and you'll see about two dozen pictures. Since I'm moving very slowly in my own training, perhaps my future will be aerial photography.
Now, with all this beauty on a Sunday morning,
I think this would be a good place to reprint a
favorite poem, written by a Canadian pilot in the Battle of Britain. It's called High Flight:
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung. High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air........
Up, up the long, delirious blue, I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
About the author: John Gillespie Magee, Jr., born in China in 1922 to an American father, a British mother, both missionaries. In school, he wrote poetry and sonnets. In 1940, rather than go to college he chose to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, and subsequently was sent to Britain. His most famous work, High Flight, was inspired by a training flight in a Spitfire during August 1941, where orbiting at 33,000 feet, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem - to Touch the Face of God. He wrote the poem upon landing that day.
Now, we were a long way from 33,000 feet, and the 172SP was nowhere near a Spitfire Mk 1, but the feeling was easy to understand that Sunday morning. Someday, hopefully, my son will be at the controls of a jet flying at 33,000 feet, and look back to that first cross country where he was above the clouds and experiencing that same sense of wonder I had, a proud papa sitting in back, wearing the JAFO hat.
High Flight always was a favorite poem, although unlike a fourth class cadet at the USAFA, I cannot recite from memory. One thing about the Cessna 172 - it does't take much to slip those surly bonds of earth, because at 55-60 knots it just takes off by itself. The author sadly died a young man, but his legacy lives on in countless film, song and literature references.
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