Inner Art of Airmanship > Twelve Flights to Strengthen your Flying

Twelve Flights to Strengthen Inner Airmanship

There is no way to become a craftsman of the cockpit from just reading words. It's a lifetime of flying, discipline, and grace. It's going from young pilot determined oak, to old pilot flowing willow. It's connecting timeless wisdom with modern psychology through the stick and the rudder—and finding what works for you. For only then can flying become an art, an expression of your own self, in harmony with the nature of the machine and the nature of the sky. Our real challenge in flight lies not in the effort to cheat death, but rather in the effort to expand the envelope of life.

Distilling Sam's push-pull, sometimes stern, sometimes zany, from-the-cuff, master-to-student method of flight instruction into words is tricky for me. However the twelve web pages linked here are a simple start. A work in progress. I'm connecting dots to see what picture emerges.

Start right now
Being a great pilot starts right now. For if not now, then when? No one has a perfect flight, few pilots come even close. But that is just fine. While pretenders worry about not looking good and idly dream of amazing flights, the maestros are memorizing the manuals and doing the job of a prepared pilot. They are slowly making constant corrections. They are enjoying the details.

Flying can not be taught
But it can be learned. You are a pilot: it is a state of mind as much as a seat in the cockpit. You will not master the myriad skills by just reading about them or dreaming about them or talking about them. You must train. Thankfully there are smart ways to train. Only when ready should you go up in the sky and practice.

Voices in my head
We all have an inner dialogue, the voice in our head that talks to only us. And there are many times we need to think actions through using our inner dialogue. However, there are times we must somehow quieten the voice, and trust another inner self.

No competition in the sky
It is as Gann titled a book: Fate is the Hunter. You should not worry about the friend to beat, or the government minimum standard to meet; this is a long game of solitaire. You must not stop if you have beaten the other student or have passed a test. The real exam will come when you are alone.

Playing for fun & love
Sam was always laughing at himself, his students and most anything else that caught his eye. He said that flying is the only occupation that has such serious consequences for failure, yet is so much fun. A passion for flight is more powerful that rocket fuel.

Master of the wing, yet always a beginner
The great masters always regard themselves as beginners, with minds open to new experiences, the momentary adventure of life. A close-to-retirement Boeing 777 examiner, who had also instructed in the T-37, F-4, F-15, B-727 & B-737, once told me he still learns something on every flight. If he does, I must.

Up down, left right, yin yang
The airplane controls work the same inverted as in upright flight, as long as we know what up and down mean. In flying we must balance up and down, the technical and the artistic, left and right brain, matter and spirit, Yin and Yang.

Centered within
The mind of the pilot is centered within you. There can be no reliance on props or tricks when fully flying. Of course we fly the wing, by the book, using crew resource management—but you are pilot-in-command centered in the sky.

The pilot is nothing special
The process of learning to really fly seems magical, the results superhuman. While soaring above the clouds is living a great dream of mankind, it is what we do. Clouds and mountains are still clouds and mountains. There are no tricks to being a pilot, just fly in the present right now. Nothing special.

Trust the inner game
Are you gently grooving with gravity or do you have a death grip on the yoke? Can you flare with flair? "It is an action is which certain things are caused to happen and certain things are allowed to happen. Faults arise in trying to cause what should be allowed."

Flow on a million details
Mindfulness can make every action important, and then what were moments in the zone become an inner art. Matching skills and challenges, you are now flowing in an ocean of air, alive in the river of life.

An unending journey of self-discovery
To the winged warrior the stick becomes as a Samurai sword, and the sky becomes a practice. Every flight is new, and the more we fly, the more we discover. What is not needed falls away, and your inner art of airmanship becomes masterful.

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In every man’s life there comes a moment that he—and only he—can answer. What a pity if the moment finds the man unprepared.

— Winston Churchill

If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an artless art growing out of the unconscious.

— Daisetsu Suzuki

Great pilots are made not born. . . . A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end result is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience.

— J. E. 'Johnnie' Johnson

There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. I do, and I demand that my players do.

— Vince Lombardi

Easy is the descent to the Lower World; but, to retrace your steps and to escape to the upper air—this is the task, this the toil.

— The Sibyl to Aeneas, in 'The Aeneid'

It is not through space that I must seek my dignity, but through the management of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds.

— Blaise Pascal

The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth, either in himself or in anyone else.

— Dostoyevsky

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.

— Voltaire

He that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.

— Confucius

My Last flight | Inner Airmanship | Sam