A Switch's Dream

PFLsAgain's profile

PFLsAgain
Posted by PFLsAgain on Mon 17 Sep 07, 10:28 PM

It was a turbulent day here in Shropshire, matching perfectly my mood. Wild and savage, demanding and unforgiving of the ordinariness and mundanity of day to day life. The wind at the airfield was wildly swinging in direction and gusting so that the windsock snapped alarmingly on the pole. A small coterie of cautious pilots sat glumly in the clubhouse and contemplated flying another day. A sullen quiet marked the slowly dragging afternoon and the scene appeared suspended in time as I rolled up for my weekly flying fix.

But a second glance revealed a few braver souls taking to the air and the Chief Flying Instructor muttered that fateful word to me. "Challenging". Once, challenging would have kept me on the ground with those other cautious souls but now it is a siren call to the wilder side of my nature. Oh, I was going to have some of this. You'd better believe it.

The wind was playing a dangerous game. Veering and gusting, allowing no sensible choice of runway, the only choice was to wait for a lull, take your chance and go. I leapt into the air just as my aircraft was weathercocked sideways and grinned at the rush. Too late now, you're airborne and whether you like it or not, you'll be landing in this soon. Better make sure its perfect. Mistakes are costly and the price paid in lives.

The turbulence was intense, I've experienced nothing like it before. I climbed to the west and met another local demon. Huge mountain waves*, unseen but deadly, tops marked with lenticular clouds. The downdraughts, too powerful for my tiny craft, pushed us groundwards; laughing with glee I looked for the lift I knew must be there and surfed it to the upper air. Then smooth, looking out over a thick band of cloud lying across Liverpool and Manchester, raining darkness and gloom beneath it.

I dived for speed into the turbulent layer and started my routine. A wild concatenation of aerobatic figures performed against a background of churning air. Bounced furiously in my seat while fighting to control the aircraft. I pulled so hard that I wrenched my shoulder as I was slammed against the door frame. But the figures came right. Oh, how perfect and right. But there's always one too far. A half cuban done badly and the aircraft protested vehemently. Pointing to the sky we bunted** and in a rush of negative G fell over the top. Blood rushed to my head, seeing stars I searched for the ground. With a huge cough the engine stopped and we fell. Time telescopes when things go wrong and if you keep calm you have plenty of time to think and act. Almost too much. I kept the propeller windmilling and levelled the wings to allow the fuel to flow, and as I put a name to the place on the ground that was rushing to meet me, the engine restarted.

In joy and glee I climbed again and this time the figure was done properly. Only then did I notice the weather moving in and finally, reluctantly, decided to head for home. The landing was a fight all the way to the ground and the sense of achievement immense.

This is why I fly in those wild moments. Every second is a precious moment which you must live to its utmost. If you break concentration to worry about some ground-bound problem then the unforgiving air will take you for its own. It combines the nihilism of submission, the sadistically self-inflicted masochism of G force and the ultimate control craved by my domme side. The power of life and death, of pain and pleasure, and survival in the face of it all. It is my home and my refuge and my drug. It is a switch's dream.

Today I am alive.

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*A mountain wave is an undulating flow of air in the lee of a range of mountains (in this case the Welsh hills). It is invisible but very real. Imagine high waves on the sea in a storm, but transferred thousands of feet into the air and you'll have some appreciation of its power.

**A loop under negative G, also called an outside loop. Not something you'd do on purpose in a Cessna 152!


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