When I was in flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama, I remember during one of the ground classes before we actually started flying that an old instructor pilot told us 'pilot-trainees' that all pilots were issued a bag of magic dust. He said that during our flying careers, we would sometimes find ourselves in dangerous situations. Sometimes those dangerous situations would be caused by our own stupidity or due to a poor decision we made, and other times the dangerous situation would be due to no fault of our own. After all, flying is a dangerous profession which is why we pilots got an extra chunk of money each month called hazardous duty pay. The old instructor pilot then told us that when we found ourselves in a dangerous situation during flying (whatever the cause), we could reach into our bag of magic dust, sprinkle it around a little, and get out of the situation alive. Then the old pilot told us that we had to be careful using the magic dust, because none of us knew how much dust was in our bags. If we relied on it too often, one day we'd reach into our bag during a dangerous situation and find the bag was empty. We'd find we used up all our magic dust, and we'd now have to pay the consequences of whatever dangerous situation we were in.
|
AuthorTidbits of information for Rodney. Archives
August 2018
Categories |