Why do you fly?
I think this thread, or a variation existed before but I can't find it? I'll try to start it again.

The last few years have found me flying in a different capacity. It’s not why I fly, it’s just a pit stop along the way of life. But in this capacity I find myself hiring pilots, as well as training prospects.

Now to be be totally fair, in our niche market of aerial application, the produce world (Fresh veggies) flying, really happens to be incidental (more so than most spray jobs) to the task at hand. There is just so much knowledge outside of moving an airplane through the sky, that it really needs to be a passion and a way of life as a package. But as a result of those other tasks and distractions, the flying really needs to be as muscle memory as walking, and really isn't what we're getting paid to do. I’m generally not as interested in how well a guy flies, that should be a given, for work I’m more interested in how well he applies, but on a personal level, I’m more interested in why he flies.

I see lots of guys that do it (the flying) outstanding, but it doesn’t take long to figure out who’s passion driven, and who’s punching a clock. I’m not passing judgement with that statement, after all, this is flying for a paycheck. I see who’s a natural (however you choose to define that) and who needs to work really, really hard (that’d be me) to maintain the level of proficiency we’d like to see. I see guys who love being a pilot, they want licences, ratings and epaulets. I see guys who love flying, they don't give a rip what the paper says. Ocassionally I meet the unicorn that comes with the pedigree, but can make an airplane sing, that one is usually pretty critical of himself and doesn’t know how wonderful it is to watch them paint the sky like a canvas.

My absolute favorite hired pilot, was really a long time friend, that just happened to sign on to flying here. He doesn’t fly the airplane he wears it, but that’s really pretty common in this gig. He’s my favorite because if he wasn’t flying that night, he was on the helicopter deck lending a hand, on the load pad loading airplanes, or on the road ferrying something that needed moved. He’d be the first to tell you he was no mechanic, but he had no problem getting nasty greasy on an airplane if it needed done. His life revolves around flight and every facet of it. Ask him to dig a ditch…. ya probably not happening, unless there’s an airplane under there

Why do you fly? what’s your jam? there are no wrong answers, just interesting ones…
I'll throw a few out there,

I do it because my job put’s food on your table, and clothes on your back and that’s satisfying

I do it because there are ridge top lakes I can fly to and fish, hundreds of miles off the road system

I do it because I love to hunt, and probably see more deer. elk or antelope, a week, than a lifetime of groundbound could provide

I do it because it was very satisfying to run the grizz off the band of sheep that had an obvious straggler (I am realistic enough to know that she was probably lunch the next day)

I do it because of the group of young kids I found deep in the Wrangles , after a well known operator had dropped them off, but everyone had forgotten the rice (the staple of their diet for the next two weeks)

I do it because the two snowbirds I found buried axle deep in the sand somewhere between Harquahala and Dateland with no food or water

I do it because it’s how I learned there are still Sonoran Antelope, and Mexican wolves in the deserts of Yuma county

I do it because I really enjoy flying along vast stretches of raw desert only to have an old abandoned building or mine catch my eye, and have the ability to set down next to it and learn about something lost, like the time we saw glass designs in the sand, that turned out to be a TB sanitarium once upon a time. Imagine whiling time away making pathways and designs in the desert floor waiting to die

I do it because I can, I’m not anxious to get to the day I can’t. I hope I am as graceful about hanging it up when the time is right, as the men before me who did that aspect of it right.

I do it because I live in a desert that ground bound people consider a wasteland (well excepet fo the winter off roaders) but from the air, even the simple daily sunsets prove phenominal




That’s a lot of i do it’s, why do you?

I am not as eloquent as you, Rob, but I do go long sometimes. Since I have a book available that addresses some of my background and reasons for flying, I will be brief here. I didn't talk a lot about my Dad in the book as Mr. Press Maxwell, who started me flying at age nine or so, was instrumental in my becoming a pilot. At that age I was sorting out how to get along for twelve hours a day, or as many light hours available, with my workaholic Dad. When I figured out that he just wanted me to do the best job possible there was no longer a problem. Press designed and we built the absolute best golf courses in this country. And it was extremely fun.

All that said, I am not a perfectionist instructor. I just want pilots to do the best job they can possibly do. I love flying and teaching flying for the same beauty you see in the art when you talk about streams in the air mass, deserts, and sunsets. Not everyone can wear the airplane, nor does everyone wish to. No problem. A computer can get the job done. There is just less beauty in driving the airplane. There are many of my pilots out there who can wear the airplane more comfortably than I can. And they certainly have better judgement sometimes. It is tremendously satisfying to sit on the picnic table out at the airport and watch some of them come in wagging the tail to keep from wagging the wings and putting it down slowly and softly on the numbers just because that is safe and actually the best job they can do.

I do it because it is beautiful when done well.

I fly because
I love machines, running machines is satisfying and mastering a machine in the air amazing.
Operating fast in a third dimension is fifty percent cooler than two.
Functioning in an environment that requires continuous dynamic interaction, with potentially ultimate stakes is ridiculously invigorating.
The perspective from the air reminds me that the world is always an amazing place.
Accessing remote places without having to walk for days or weeks is a mind blowing privilege.
I fly because, given the above factors, it seems like the ultimate sin to be able fly to and not do it.

The chicks, I do it all for the ladies

Rob wrote: I do it because of the group of young kids I found deep in the Wrangles , after a well known operator had dropped them off, but everyone had forgotten the rice (the staple of their diet for the next two weeks).

This reminds me; a few years ago I was sitting at the boat takeout for Labyrinth Canyon in S. Utah (Mineral Bottom) when a guy and his 20ish y/o son paddled up and asked for help. The dad had an injury and wanted to get to a hospital right way. We chatted as I drove them into to town and somehow flying came up. The son told a story about when he was backpacking in Alaska with a group and their food resupply never showed. “A cool pilot guy from Arizona was on his annual trip in AK. He flew to town brought us back some rice.” I asked if his name was Rob, “ Yeah! That was his name! You pilot guys are awesome.”

I wish I had something to add that was relevant to the topic. I remember sitting on a cooler between the front seats of my parent’s 1976 Monaco motorhome headed for Sequoia National Park. I spent most of the drive listening to 8 tracks and talking to my dad about becoming a pilot. I was maybe 10. Took 9 more years to buy a plane, 3 years to restore it and another year to learn to fly. I thought for sure I’d end up with a flying career. Seems so long ago. Wish I still had that passion and drive.

I fly because I just like operating different kinds of machines, I guess.

There was a time when I was a kid that I told my mom I was going to be a crop duster when I grew up. She talked me out of it… but I kind of wonder if I’d have done it if she hadn’t. There was a time in college that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get in to farming or not.

So now 20 years later I do my chemical application on the ground and fly because I want to.

contactflying wrote:I do it because it is beautiful when done well.

It doesn't get any more eloquent than that. I'll share this as a gift of appreciation ;

This spring I was training a gentleman (retiring 160th Blackhawk pilot) to take to the midwest for his first spray season. He is all about flight. I think he was a bird in a past life.
While he was learning to spray, he remarked that he was studying a great book. The book? Contact Flying. He asked if I knew Jim Dulin, and I said I'd never heard of him or the book (just kidding on the last bit)

Zebra, that's the good stuff man, love it.

flyingzebra wrote:The perspective from the air reminds me that the world is always an amazing place.

Agreed, and even more amazing to my feeble mind is how that perspective changes with each shift in altitude. Blessed we are.
And this;

flyingzebra wrote:I fly because, given the above factors, it seems like the ultimate sin to be able fly to and not do it.

Aero, bingo


On a more serious note, my wife and I went for our first casual 'meeting' to visit my plane at DVT. Our first 'official' date, I flew her to Sedona for dinner, of which my daughter proclaims, well now you've gone and screwed yourself... how are you ever gonna top that?

Whee, I can't thank you enough for that. I lost the 'mentors' contact information, and was never able to check on them when we got home. I can't tell you how often I've lamented on not knowing how they faired. I'll share the story later, but I wasn't completely convinced those kids would ever make it out of there

BigBen, Your avatar speaks volumes. THAT'S the good stuff

Take care, Rob

My uncle landed his yellow cessna 140 at my other uncles ranch when I was 4 years old and took me for a ride and from then on I was hooked on flying. My goal was to join the RCAF when I finished school but due to a eye injury in hockey that goal was gone. I finally had the time and opportunity to get my license when a nearby town had a flight school so 51 years later my lifelong dream came true. I live on the Canadian prairie and flying has unlocked all its beauty and hidden secrets that cannot be seen by travel in a car or truck. Living the dream

Whee, your story is another reminder of how small the world is and how all the dots do connect.

I decided to fly in an effort to find a more reasonable method to connect two distant points. Essentially, it was out of practicality. I always had an interest in aviation and had numerous aviation influences throughout my life but never had a good reason to take that expensive and time consuming right of passage that provides a PPL until the distant points provided the "excuse".

Now that I'm here, I only wish I had done it sooner. The doors it has opened up provide an entirely new set of opportunities and reasons to get out of bed (with the excitement of a 6 year old). The challenges it provides dominates my pursuit to overcome and allowed us to fulfill the idea we could condense a 16 hour drive into a 5 hour flight. Wow. But it is also more than that. We go see dear old friends or family in distant places on a mild day trip that still allows us to attend to daily livestock obligations. Another plus is I haven't had to fly the airlines since.

I concur with all the observations mentioned earlier enjoying the beauty from above. But my sense of practicality is so stubborn that the idea of launching the airplane just to bore a path through the sky doesn't appeal to me, in spite of the fact that the aircraft lives 100' from the house, a convenience not many can take for granted. I have to have a mission. But I will say that I'm spring loaded to say yes to any mission that falls within the Maule's unique characteristics.

We’ll what else would I do? Didn’t have the patience for med school, and my parents were married when I was conceived so I couldn’t become a lawyer


Jokes aside, was always around aviation, my mom has a photo of me practically standing on my dads lap flying his aero commander, my arms at about their max reach for the yoke as a baby lol

Later got into building RC airplanes, and after a little college I had that lightbulb above the head moment and got all my certificates and my first flying job

I love the machines, the beauty of how planes fly, I also like the art that is making them fly, nothing like a nice epic slip into a little grass strip with beautiful heavy trees around it, take the slip out at the last second and kiss the earth, or fighting a major cross wind like make up sex with a redhead lol, heck I’ve been instrument rated and flying IMC for work for a long while, I still get a chuckle when flying to mins and I break out with the runway right there, or a first landing in the backcountry where I don’t think anyone else has landed before, hop out look around take it all in and in the back of my head I’m like “first!”
Or when you’re instructing someone and you just see it click in their head

I’ve debated opening a small lost wax foundry a few times, and I probably will, but aviation is the only activity that I have found where I can make a good living doing something I actually also PAY to do for fun

My story is not why do I fly but why did I fly. A few years ago I realized that I wasn't flying enough to stay as sharp as I should be, so I quit flying and sold my airplane.

My first flight in any aircraft was in a Belle 47 helicopter. I was 18 years old and working on a Forest Service Fire crew. They had brought a helicopter to the Ranger Station and parked it in the horse pasture due to a forecast of dry lightning on the Fourth of July.

I and another guy were flown in to a two man-er lightning strike. It was FUN. The second morning on the fire a twin engine plane flew over at tree top level and kicked out cargo parachute. The cargo was two cases (48 quarts) of pineapple juice. So, we drank lots of pineapple juice and made lots of pee to help mop up the fire.

Two years later I got a job on the district helitack crew. We had a Hughes 500 and young Vietnam veterans pilots. They were fearless. I was hooked on flying. I couldn't believe I was getting paid to do this.

Fast forward seven years and I am working on a Ranger District in NE Oregon and living next to the county airport and watching spray planes come and go. I hadn't flown for several years and I wanted to learn to fly. I asked the old airport FBO operator if there was a flight instructor there. He said he was and had a trainer but too busy. But, there was a wheat rancher that would teach me and I could use his trainer. That was 1984. I learned to fly and bought a share in a Cherokee 180.

I didn't fly to travel, I flew to get a bird's eye view.

To take off before sunrise and then watch the sun rise.

To see what field a farmer has plowed and wonder why that one.

To see the elk being fed by the game department in the winter...don't get too close to disturb them.

To see the designs in the hay fields when the farmers are cutting hay.

To see what the rich guy on the hill is building.

To see which houses burned in the last forest fire.

To find a route in to an area I wanted to go with a snowmobile or to a sand dune in the Potholes Reservoir where I wanted to go boat camping.

Now I get my aviation fix vicariously by reading this forum about you guys flying

On Saturday mornings I go to coffee and donuts at the airport and listen to old pilots tell stories about flying. Some still fly, some don't.

The Belle 47


The Hughes 500


The Cherokee 180


Some hay field designs


game department feeding Elk


These are Rocky Mountain Elk, imported to Washington state from Yellowstone in 1913


The rich guy on the hill


Snag canyon fire. This one was close.

I don't know why, but airplanes always fascinated me. My earliest memory is boarding a DC-3 with my mom for a flight to Oklahoma's Fort Sill to reunite with my dad who was in the Army. Everything about flying sucked me in. In the mid 1960s, Richard Miller had a short article in Sport Aviation about the "Bamboo Butterfly". It was a crude bamboo and plastic Rogollo Wing hang glider. I sent him a letter asking for plans. He responded with a crude,1 page drawing with a note at the bottom asking me to not sue Richard Miller. I built lots of these and managed to fly each example until it was destroyed in a crash. The bamboo was remarkably good at dissipating energy by splitting longitudinally and bending like a giant shock absorber. Later, I discovered "store bought" hang gliders and bought a series of them culminating in a Moyes XtraLight that had wings that could change geometry in flight. They were amazing flying machines and I could put them on top of my car! I still remember the first time I flew with any appreciable air under me. I launched from a cliff on the Oregon Coast and flew for several minutes before landing on the beach below. I could hear the surf, smell the ocean and the view of the Sea Stacks out in the surf was amazing.

Flying my XtraLight off of Sandia Crest in Albuquerque


In the mid-1970s, a friends dad taught both of us to fly in powered planes. I remember the Cessna 150 we were flying rented for $15/hour wet! There was no charge for the lessons. I got my license in 1976 and never looked back. What I've flown and why I flew it has changed over the years. My first plane was a Grumman Traveler, AA5-A. I bought it to save time on my regular commutes between Oregon and Washington. That was the practical reason, but I just plain loved flying that thing. The controls were crisp and responsive, but the Grumman aircraft had a nasty reputation for stabilizing in a spin once it fully developed. To make sure my recovery reflexes were good from an incipient spin, I took spin training from a fellow with a Decathlon. I made the mistake of saying yes when he asked me if I'd like to try some light aerobatics after the spin training was done. That was expensive! I wound up buying a share in a Pitts S2A, and competed in the intermediate category of IAC aerobatic contests. At the time, I had a high pressure job working as a nuclear project manager at a Naval Shipyard. I was on call 24/7, 365 days/year and it was exhausting. The level of concentration required to do competition aerobatics helped flush all of my work issues out of my brain and dissolved all of the impossible tasks I was assigned at work for at least a couple of hours. During the next 3 years, aerobatics helped me keep my sanity.

After the Pitts, I bought a share in a 182. By then, I was married and had kids in college. The 182 was a magical way to get my kids and all their belongings to and from far way schools. Flying IFR also required considerable concentration and that helped wash away the headaches I had as a National Program Manager for Spent Nuclear Fuel transportation in Washington DC. Again, flying helped me keep my sanity and provided a magic carpet for escaping the DC area when I was able to get away with my wife for a brief spell. We flew to Rhode Island once and managed to take in the Hudson River VFR corridor through New York City!


When the kids graduated, left home and started their own lives, I sold the 182 and was ready to quit flying as I neared retirement. Then I discovered this darned website and the new (to me) game of backcountry flying and camping. That led to purchase of a Maule and a move back west where some of the best backcountry flying is available. I had retired from my government job and was working as a nuclear waste management consultant by then. Running your own business is challenging. I didn't know when the work would run out, so I said yes to more projects than made sense, and that put a huge amount of stress on me. Backcountry camping was a way to find solitude in a crazy world with mad schedules.

Camping on the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon


I'm finally fully retired at 70 years old, and my reasons for flying have shifted again. I still have the Maule, but there is no madhouse I need to escape from. Flying is something I do for the beauty and inspiration it brings to my life. It keeps me interested in the world around me and lets me take my bicycles to some amazing spots where I ride slowly and marvel at the world around me.

I got my commercial license in the mid 1980s and briefly considered flying as a career, but entry level positions in aviation paid about a third of what I was making as an engineer. I was also afraid that flying for pay would change flying from the escape it provided from life's complications to the cause of my life's complications. I didn't want that to happen, so I applied the healthy pay my career offered to personal flying as my remedy for what was unpleasant in world around me. Flying has been my escape from the worst parts of the world around me, and it's taught me a lot. Even when I'm on the ground, I marvel at what that ocean of air above me is doing. It's been a marvelous journey!

I covered those young loach pilots in the air cav. They were a courageous group taking the highest percentage loss of any soldiers in Vietnam. They loved the OH6-A because it was the most maneuverable. They flew single pilot with their crew almost exclusively because highers didn't like sitting in back with their ear inches from a screaming transmission.

I did a lot of traveling growing up and was always fascinated with airplanes. Built model airplanes and always dreamed of flying one day. I grew up in a non-aviator family. My mother hated flying and my dad put up with it - they were both anxious people in airplanes.

In college I met several people simultaneously who were all working on different types of certificates/ratings. Out of the blue one day my friend Tommy told me about his long cross country solo he just completed and I was so blown away. I knew nothing about GA at that time. I was living in San Diego at the time and found out about what is likely the best flying club in the world based out of KMYF. He told me about how the club worked and it seemed doable. 150/152s rented for 28-29/hr wet back then. I then met a friend at my gym who was working on his CFI - he took me up on my first intro flight in 1989. I was hooked immediately. I don't think a day has passed since where I haven't thought about flying at least once.

I became a crackhead aviator immediately following that flight and within 2 years had multiengine/comm/instrument certificates. Got my CFI a year later. For me - Flying is the marriage of man, and machine. Traveling and being able to see the world from a different perspective is obviously a big part of the enjoyment but there are so many facets that have kept me completely addicted to flying for the last 34 years. I love the challenge flying brings. It requires study, mental focus, intelligence, and diligence. Learning to fly also helped me in other areas of my life by applying similar principles. I find the experience of being in air almost meditative - a surreal example of complete focus and being in the moment. No other thoughts of life's problems are with me while flying. I only focus on what is in front of me.

I love teaching people to fly because I get to see the same spark of awe and enthusiasm in my students. Whether it's a private pilot making his first solo or a more experienced pilot working on an advanced rating. I see the same excitement and passion I felt since that first flight. I have had some great mentors over the years who have helped me in so many ways. Kept me safe but also went the extra mile to help me out when stranded somewhere due to mechanical problems. There is a brotherhood (sisterhood too for the ladies) that feels like family within our community.

I didn't choose aviation as a career. I have some regrets about it even though I love what I am doing now. This could change in a few years. I have thought about possibly taking on some contract flying in a few years if the opportunity presents itself. I don't see myself ever wanting to give it up and I do fear the day when I am too old to continue flying.

Anyway - great thread - I have enjoyed reading everyone's responses. We are so lucky to get to fly these amazing machines.


Josh

When I was 15 years old a friend of mine and I got hired by a painting company. The two owners were hands on guys who did the actual spraying with airless sprayers. We did giant apartment complexes where we would be for months. Two crews did pressure washing, two came after that doing masking, then the spraying of the main color, then crews doing trim.

My friend and I were the hose tenders for the owners. We kept the the bucket the airless sprayers fed from full, moved ladders, moved tarps and kept the hoses so the owners could just spray continuously.

A few weeks into the job I couldn't help but notice that Roy, the guy I worked for, was always smiling as he worked. I asked him why and he said "I just like watching the paint go on". How many people do you know who can't wait to get to work every day?

And that's how it is for me with flying. I could say something corny like "I feel like I was put here on earth to fly" but I really just love being in the air.

Flying keeps me aware and feeling alive.

Surfing around the world did it in my youth, off-road cross country motorcycle riding and flying off airport/ mountains does it for me now.

contactflying wrote:I covered those young loach pilots in the air cav. They were a courageous group taking the highest percentage loss of any soldiers in Vietnam. They loved the OH6-A because it was the most maneuverable. They flew single pilot with their crew almost exclusively because highers didn't like sitting in back with their ear inches from a screaming transmission.

Contact, they called you guys " The High Bird" or sometimes "The Snake".

Office work mostly, but occasionally I got to shoot rockets (backseat) or minigun and chunker (front seat.) Front seat kept a finger on our map location and worked VHF to FAC and FM to Blues (our own infantry platoon.) Your guys found Charlie and him fought eyeball to eyeball while we brought a world of support.

Great question and I fly for fun.

I've been checking out planes since I was a kid and walked my future wife along the levies next to Palo Alto airport to see the planes coming and going some 30 years ago. Never thought I'd be able to afford it. A couple years ago my wife and I went to Alaska to check out the northern lights and ended up checking out the bush pilot museum in Anchorage on the suggestion of a couple guys we met in a diner before flying home at the end of the day. Loved it. My wife asked how much to learn to fly. I said 10-15k and signed up when I got home. Literally a dream come true. Cheers

AEROPOD wrote:The chicks, I do it all for the ladies

And once you get married, all that's left are the tax write-offs. Doesn't have quite the existential substance.