Good News and Bad News:
Or, should I say, Life-Changingly Excellent News and Annoying News:
I passed my flight instructor certification test on Monday afternoon! 14 months of training all came down to one flight test that I had to take in high, gusty, variable winds-- they got up to 26 knots gusting to 31, shifted 40 degrees over the course of the flight, and were blowing almost straight across the runway the whole time. I had to test on teaching maneuvers in winds that I'd never go flying in with a student. But as the saying goes, that's why they call us pilots.
And so the life changingly excellent news is, now I have a career that will pay well to do something I enjoy, and which is in great demand. It feels like I've just broken through this wall, I've got so many possibilities open to me now after so much great uncertainty for so long.
Oh, it feels good!
There's just one drawback, I realize. I've been flying helicopters for over a year now, and any time I'm flying I'm never more than one second away from certain death. One second's worth of kinetic energy is all that stands between engine failure and main rotor stall. Lose your engine, and you have one second to get into a glide before your main rotor slows beyond the point of no return. And as a flight instructor, I am now going to teach students who've never flown aircraft before how to fly one of the most difficult aircraft in the sky. In the process, we are going to spend a great deal of time practicing time management for that one second, in which I'm going to simulate an engine failure, the student is going to react, and I'm going to fix whatever he does wrong. All within one second. And the most important thing I've learned of all is how to keep a cool head no matter what goes wrong. Excitement is a distraction, and emotion is your worst enemy.
So the drawback: Nothing excites me any more. This state of tranquility I've found never ends. Things don't excite me in a bad way anymore, but they don't excite me in a good way anymore either. All the things I used to do for excitement just don't compare now. I came to this occupation with the idea that it would be cool to have the most exciting job possible, and it is, but now I'm probably going to have to be a workaholic because the job is *so* exciting that nothing else is exciting anymore. Weird...
And a side-effect to that drawback: The things people do for general entertainment are not terribly exciting any more either. So me and my exciting and perfectly spiritually fulfilling career go to some hypothetical party with a bunch of people who work at boring office jobs or service industry jobs or some shit, and WTF? To these people this party probably is exciting, but to me, hell, people pay me tons of money to have more excitement than this six days a week. So I don't seem excited by any of it, so people assume I must not be very interesting, and certainly not interesting compared to some dork who has to get completely trashed to try to add some artificial meaning to his empty life and becomes the center of attention. What's the deal? When did it become so unfashionable to have a *real* man's job?
Or, should I say, Life-Changingly Excellent News and Annoying News:
I passed my flight instructor certification test on Monday afternoon! 14 months of training all came down to one flight test that I had to take in high, gusty, variable winds-- they got up to 26 knots gusting to 31, shifted 40 degrees over the course of the flight, and were blowing almost straight across the runway the whole time. I had to test on teaching maneuvers in winds that I'd never go flying in with a student. But as the saying goes, that's why they call us pilots.
And so the life changingly excellent news is, now I have a career that will pay well to do something I enjoy, and which is in great demand. It feels like I've just broken through this wall, I've got so many possibilities open to me now after so much great uncertainty for so long.
Oh, it feels good!
There's just one drawback, I realize. I've been flying helicopters for over a year now, and any time I'm flying I'm never more than one second away from certain death. One second's worth of kinetic energy is all that stands between engine failure and main rotor stall. Lose your engine, and you have one second to get into a glide before your main rotor slows beyond the point of no return. And as a flight instructor, I am now going to teach students who've never flown aircraft before how to fly one of the most difficult aircraft in the sky. In the process, we are going to spend a great deal of time practicing time management for that one second, in which I'm going to simulate an engine failure, the student is going to react, and I'm going to fix whatever he does wrong. All within one second. And the most important thing I've learned of all is how to keep a cool head no matter what goes wrong. Excitement is a distraction, and emotion is your worst enemy.
So the drawback: Nothing excites me any more. This state of tranquility I've found never ends. Things don't excite me in a bad way anymore, but they don't excite me in a good way anymore either. All the things I used to do for excitement just don't compare now. I came to this occupation with the idea that it would be cool to have the most exciting job possible, and it is, but now I'm probably going to have to be a workaholic because the job is *so* exciting that nothing else is exciting anymore. Weird...
And a side-effect to that drawback: The things people do for general entertainment are not terribly exciting any more either. So me and my exciting and perfectly spiritually fulfilling career go to some hypothetical party with a bunch of people who work at boring office jobs or service industry jobs or some shit, and WTF? To these people this party probably is exciting, but to me, hell, people pay me tons of money to have more excitement than this six days a week. So I don't seem excited by any of it, so people assume I must not be very interesting, and certainly not interesting compared to some dork who has to get completely trashed to try to add some artificial meaning to his empty life and becomes the center of attention. What's the deal? When did it become so unfashionable to have a *real* man's job?
lunna:
Flight test? wow- that is so cool
