Chapter 6

Learning to fly is addictive:

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (9 June 1922 – 11 December 1941)was an American aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is most famous for his poem,

"High Flight."

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Thank you Wikipedia.

That doesn't even come close to the magic of sitting in history while discovering that, yes indeed, a minor adjustment to a foot or a slight movement of a hand, she could top the wind-swept heights and climb between sun-split clouds ... look down on green dappled fields and meandering ribbons of rivers ... sun-spackled lakes in east Tennessee with tiny dots of sail chasing their own mysteries. As they fled north the color of the clouds changed from golden silver to heavy grey ... the green fields of Georgia slipped away behind to be replaced by red plowed fields of east Tennessee clay to slide into the snowy hills of Kentucky and past the frost edged river of Ohio.

On the outside the Mitchell was all business ... the inside was pure luxury unrivaled by Lear or Cessna business jets. Heated, pressurized executive seating with the very latest in Garmin GPS navigation systems, Connie was soon lost to the magic of flying the big twin.

"Connie?" Too was speaking in her brain ... oh ... headphones...

"Yes?" She spoke ... but it was so hard to pull her head back from the joy.

"You're a natural."

"It's the Gulls."

"The Gulls ... like seagulls?"

"Yes ... I may be just a kid ... but I've made seagulls my life's work. Flying this is more like an albatross or a Condor. Gulls are quicker. I imagine that a small plane is like a gull flying ... except for the hovering ... right on the edge of the beach ... where the heat of the sand meets the cool of the water ... gulls can loiter for hours in that updraft. I'll bet gliders are like that.