Flying Waters

Let's talk about airplanes.

When I was a young teen, I discovered that I loved reading about WWII. It was a fascination with military history in general too, but I mostly ended up reading about the Second World War. A few kids books about the Pacific War particularly captured me... The Flying Tigers, Wake Island, Guadalcanal and Midway. But when I discovered the Landmark children's edition of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, I was sold. Airplanes were the bomb. Particularly the B-25 Mitchell. Ted Lawson's love of his plane inspired me and I caught the bug. I suppose it helped that I traveled on planes a lot as a kid and thought they were pretty close to magical; but here's where military history met airplanes. :) I even got into modeling as I got older, building everything from the F-4 Wildcat to an F-18 Blue Angel. And I just loved them!

So my love lay dormant for a while. Fast forward to the middle of last year... in the middle of my first deployment; we were probably hanging out in the Red Sea. I was thinking very hard about what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life (because there's a lot of time to think). And all I could think of was the Facebook pictures of a friend from my university band who worked for a seaplane business about 15 minutes away from my parent's house... and how jealous I was that he got to fly to the islands in the Puget Sound for his job. And I thought, why couldn't I? I would adore it!

And then I read Code Name Verity, which was like pouring gasoline on my little flame of a love for planes; and I was in shock (for a variety of reasons). Just about two weeks back from my post-deployment leave, and I had just made the above linked blog. Due to the nature of the URL (at least, this is the only explanation I can think of), Google popped an add for the regional airport's flying school... "Want to Fly?" it beckoned. After a day or two, I followed the link and discovered the flying school was less than a half-hour away. I jumped at the chance and signed up for a "Discovery Flight". It was so much fun!

And for Christmas, my husband got me A Higher Call, which is a great individual story about the German Air Force in North Africa and Germany in WWII. I guess they're going to be making a movie soon. In the back of the book, there is a list of aviation museums around the world... and again, one was only a half-hour away from me. The Military Aviation Museum in Chesapeake was fabulous to visit... and it happens to be having a WWII airshow THIS WEEKEND. You could say I've got planes on the brain right now. :)

I had in my head that I couldn't pursue a license until after I got out of the Navy. I mean, it's expensive. But then I was asked by a friend in late January if I'd taken another lesson, and it got me to thinking. It wasn't until late March that I decided to take the plunge, trust the Lord and the instincts he gave me, and go fly the plane. Took a third lesson April 5th, then after hemming and hawing about the possibility of getting education benefits into play... that and being crazy busy and distracted with family, friends and work... it wasn't until May 5th and 8th that I really got into lessons again. Worked on stalls, LANDING, radio calls, taxiing and whatnot. Goodness. I am in love. There's nothing quite as exciting as accelerating on take-off. But ground school is taxing, and difficult because I always over-think things that I'm learning in class. It's a computer-based training system, just like the kind the Navy uses, except this is actually useful information. We'll see how all this goes, God bless it.

Jw