Ah, these unforgettable moments between long wings:
sitting at 27 thousand feet above the Andes,
being first to cross the finish line at the German Nationals,
spiraling up in 16 kts above the Rocky Mountains!
And those wonderful memories:
my very first flight in a Beech Queen Air,
my first solo in a Rhönlerche,
my first outlanding in a Ka6,
my first 500k in an ASW17!
What would make one of these flights, or any other, my best flight, ever?
Is it that one special moment, that one particular performance, that one outstanding achievement?
For me it’s none of those!
My best flight, ever, is the one I fly again and again.
Let me explain.
There are flights, which we fly more often than once. Flights to practice for a check ride, come to mind.
Or the infamous Silver-C, the most difficult flight over 50 kilometers, which is also usually flown at least twice, because the barograph ran out of ink or the GPS logger lost its memory during the first attempt.
But then there is this one flight, which we fly over and over again, with friends at the bar, when filling in the logbook, while dreaming in an armchair. This is a flight, which is burned into our memory forever, a flight which follows us everywhere, which moves us and seems to have a mysterious meaning.
It’s not a flight to brag about; quite to the contrary, it often shows mercilessly some rather humiliating aspects of our behavior, when things didn’t go as expected, when we goofed up in one way or another.
And it is the entire experience from take off to landing, not only the one stellar moment, which calls it to our remembrance.
All this, I suspect, because this flight connects us with the essence of the why and the way we fly.
Whenever I replay the hours of my best flight, ever, in my memory, I watch ‘this guy’ in the cockpit, and what he does, how he acts and reacts tells me something about myself. It is something I know deep down, but never fully realize, acknowledge consciously.
Up there, alone among clouds, without interference from the habitual, “down to earth” ways of operating, ‘this guy’ seems to be totally aligned with who he is.
It is that quality of authenticity which turns one particular sortie into my best flight, ever, which makes it intriguing and irresistible to remember, to fly it again and again, so to speak.
Quite possibly, because it nudges me to let this kind of true, intrinsic behavior come out more often, and not only in the third dimension.
Now just for the fun of it I wrote a story about such a flight and realized that it didn’t – or doesn’t – touch me only. When I read it to friends in Switzerland, to the attendees of the Colorado Soaring Performance Seminar in Boulder, I got totally unexpected feedback, and lots of it.
In the end I was persuaded to publish it. So if you are curious to find out if my story touches you, too, go to this page on my website for the podcast and a link to a nicely packaged pdf.
