What do you love about flying? - (some positive karma)

[Frank Giger]

I like flying because there is no damned good reason to do it.

I don't fly for transportation. I don't fly to test my skills (though I take training seriously and usually have something built into every flight that's on a training syllabus). I fly because it's fun, it's pretty, and it's all for me.

It's a random and unexpected sort of thing for one to do, and I'd say it's a guilty pleasure if it weren't for the fact that I'm completely shameless about it.

[Floatsflyer]

Adventure, freedom, escape, extreme fun, excitement, totally in control, inner peace, tranquility, sharing the experience.....all multiplied by a 1000 during the summer when I'm in the seaplane.

[Antique Tower]

[walt.buskey]

Even as a child, I could stare at the countours of a single rock for hours, imagining it were the earth viewed from above… Later, I got into maps, literally. I can get lost in a map and be completely away from the "real world" for extended periods. Ever since my first ride in the back seat of a Cub with two other young boys in 1956, I've been hooked.

Yes, the science, yes, the skill, but it's the view of our world from above that gets me every time. Even though I have only --after all these years-- a student pilot license and I'm still involved in fixing up my '56 Tri-Pacer, I've been fortunate to have flown in a variety of aircraft with acquaintances who were generous enough (or foolish enough?) to let me into and fly their aircraft. I can't wait to get mine in the air again.

[1600vw]

The day I was old enough to stick my arm out the window I dreamed I was flying using my hand as a rudder. I am sure a lot of us did this as we stood in the seat. My mom takes me to the airport to watch airplanes. In this day and age one could go onto the roof of the airport and they had a look out platform. You could watch the flights coming and going. After we went into the café and had a bite to eat. My mom being the looker she was had all sorts of single men talking with her. One takes us up in his airplane. I was around 8 at the time. He asked after our flight if I would like to go with him for a short flight he had to make. I was so excited to go. One the return trip back we run out of gas as we approached the airport. My second flight was a flight with an engine out. We were lucky and within reach of the airport. I was hooked.

[FunInAviation]

Going to Fly-ins. Warbirds, Vintage aircraft and FOOD!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_1Y9bQfvM

[Byron J. Covey]

The Joy of Flight

“Why?” A simple question, often asked, as in “Why do you fly little airplanes?” Every time I’m asked, I
find that there are too many reasons why I fly to offer a succinct answer. But I still try from time to time to communicate some of the reasons, usually by describing a particular flight that I remember.

The Sunday sun was getting low in the west, which meant that we would be taking off down wind so we
could see where we were going. That wouldn’t be a problem. The “wind” was a warm summer breeze, just barely strong enough to swing the windsock. Beyond the departure end of runway 9 was a residential road and a power line. 50 feet of altitude would easily clear the power line, and then there were two miles of open lake.

The lake was the object of our flight. Back in the early 1960’s, the Air Force had given the Civil Air Patrol a number of surplus J-3’s to use for air search and rescue purposes, and our squadron had one. To save money, the Air Force didn’t paint them; the J-3 was solid silver, with black N numbers and stenciled serial numbers on the side. One of the local oil companies had donated fuel to allow our squadron to patrol Lake Sinclair late each Sunday during the summer in search of stranded boaters. The J-3 was non-electric, and this was long before hand held radios that actually worked, so if we found a stranded boater, we would return to the airport and call the sheriff to initiate a rescue.

For reasons that I still don’t understand, most of the adult CAP members didn’t really care to make the
lake patrols. Of course, that worked to my advantage because I could always get Sonny to fly with me.
Sonny was the FBO, a CAP pilot, and the person who knew the lake better than anyone else, because
he sprayed it for mosquitoes in a modified PA-12. He loved to read paperback books, and he was always
willing to ride with me, as long as he had a book to read.

Everyone else had already left the airport that afternoon, so Sonny sat in the shade reading while I
pre-flighted, started, and taxied the J-3 up to the FBO building. Holding his place with a finger in the closed
paperback, he climbed into the front seat, strapped in, said “Let me know if you need anything,”
reopened his book, and resumed his reading.

The takeoff began in typical J-3 fashion: I could hear every cylinder fire as we slowly accelerated. When
the tail came up, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. With almost no discernable attitude
change, the runway began to slowly drop away. The feeling was more one of being magically levitated
than of flying in an airplane. Through the open door, I could see, as well as sense, every foot of altitude
we gained, and every foot of runway that passed underneath as we slowly motored toward the lake.
The airplane was doing exactly what I wanted it to do, but it was doing so without conscious thought of
control movements on my part. Sonny was leaning on the left side of cockpit, away from the open door,
totally blocking my view of the airspeed indicator. He liked to challenge me that way. It didn’t matter; I
didn’t need the airspeed indicator. The airplane was telling me everything that I needed to know.

We flew to the dam, turned left, and flew up Rocky Creek. A short hop over land brought us to Island
Creek, which we followed back down to the open lake. At the mouth of Island Creek, we came upon
a small runabout adrift in the lake. I circled back over it and throttled back to idle. At 200 feet,
Sonny stuck his head out the door and shouted, “Are you OK?” They were, so we continued the
patrol without further incident.

We were on final with the setting sun at our backs the next time Sonny spoke. “Land on the taxiway.”
Another challenge. The silver J-3 slid to the right and found the taxiway seemingly with no direction
from me.

Sonny got out at the gas pumps. I replaced the fuel we used, then pushed the Cub
back to its spot and tied it down. It was almost dark, but I still had a few minutes left, so I climbed
back into the rear seat. I smelled the airplane, took the controls in my hands, scanned the instruments,
looked at the evening sky through the windshield and began dreaming of the next flight.


Byron J. Covey

[Gunslinger37]

Flew as a commercial pilot and test pilot for many years. Now I fly for fun.....

[Mayhemxpc]

All of the above. If I can add any meager thought to those...

The camaraderie is not just within the group of EAA Chapter and CAP members. It goes beyond to those who have gone wear and those still rising in the East (e.g.,YE and CAP Cadets.) It is a sharing with Antoine de Saint-Expury, Richard Bach, and Ernest K. Gann (among others) who captured the superlative emotions and deep introspection of flight.

In another aspect, I think that flying is akin to heaven -- and not just because we are above the earth. Heaven, I have been taught, is perfection. Perfect in the way that it is complete, it needs nothing and wants nothing. Heaven is not eternity in the sense of time without end. It is timelessness. There is no future, no past, only now. Every thought, every action, every moment, is now. Flying is like that. Yes, I know, don't let the airplane take you anywhere your mind hasn't been fifteen minutes before -- but see, that too is now -- I exist in that fifteen minutes in the future as I exist in the present moment. Every action is made with the goal of being complete, with nothing else needed or wanting, and never too much of anything. It is rarely achieved. A goal to be sought. When I come close, not only do I think I begin to understand heaven, I also know that -- like three perfect landings in a row -- it was not do to my own efforts, but cooperating with grace.

Anyway, that is flying on a good day and what keeps me going back up. On a bad day it is watching the map crawl by to the next fuel stop and the bathroom.

[AcroGimp]

I've had the Yak a little over a year, with some previous aerobatic training as well as a ton of formation flying over the past year.

Two of my fellow Yak and formation pilots and I finally put it all together after doing some training with a pilot from the UK Aerostars, a formation aerobatic display team in Europe.

From Dash-2 on my right wing (brown and tan Yak is mine):


From my cockpit:


During our last 2-ship training flight, practicing loops and quarter-clovers (rolling loop):


'Gimp