Listening to: Future Islands
Reading: A Plague Upon Humanity by Daniel Barenblatt
I've thought about writing an aviation blog ever since I started flying in 2008. The urge only amplified when I began flying professionally in 2012. My hesitation was rooted in feelings of unoriginality and triteness; surely there were hundreds of blogs out there providing peeks into the lives of pilots and, upon seeing what the lifestyle felt like firsthand, I realized how limited the interesting variety of blog entries could be. Nevertheless, here we are.
While it is true that there is only so much variety in the routine experiences of a professional pilot from which to draw content, there is an endless supply of unique individuals who might serve as mediums, translating those experiences into text and double-clicking them into the annals of cyberspace. This blog is therefore being founded in the spirit of individuality--there are many pilots but there is only one me. That sounds like a statement straight from the narcissistic mouth of a millennial... because I am a card-carrying member of that [often unfortunate] cohort. Personally, I do not subscribe to the "special snowflake" motif so commonly associated with my generation, despite the ring of my previous statement. With this distinction made, I will shove off into the shallow surf of professional pilot experiences with the understanding that my career serves only as the legs of a long and wide table, upon which rest the flatware and charcuterie of which I shall write.
I am afforded great opportunity to travel North America and other parts of the world because of my job as a pilot. I have met very interesting people and seen, tasted, smelled, hidden from, fibbed through, hiked over, and simply observed very interesting things. This will not be a discussion of how cool it is to fly jets for a living (although, for the record, I do think it is pretty damn cool) or what it feels like crossing an ocean at 43,000'. There are plenty of social media resources out there that already accomplish that (see: Pilots of Instagram). What this will be is a focused monocle on one man in a sea of humanity, flying across vast stretches of terrain at 83% the speed of sound and reporting on his findings.
About me: former Dash Trash and E-Jet junkie, current corporate pilot.
So here we go. Brakes released, cleared to push.
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| The author attempting to model an Embraer 175's CF34-8E turbofran engine in Salt Lake City. |
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