Squawk1200

No writing recently… for the simple fact that there’s been no flying since my checkride.  The sad truth is that mingled with the great achievement of getting certificated is the harsh reality that if I want to fly any more, the onus is on me to pay for it. (come to think of it, that little missive makes for a decent foreword for what you’re about to read)  In the meantime, I had some thoughts this evening which I felt compelled to write about.  Said thoughts have absolutely nothing to do with flying, but hopefully you, dear reader, will still find them, at minimum, mildly interesting.  So without further ado, I shall switch into quasi-political thoughtfulness mode and bestow upon you my thoughts for the evening.

I’ve recently become something of a budding Neal Boortz fan; this is part of a semi-concerted effort to become better-informed. (also, Scott had a little something to do with it)  However, I generally only get a small daily dose of his radio show… namely the 20-minute period I spend driving to work in the morning.  I could listen at work, but I suspect it would impact my productivity, so I demur.  I try to make up for this by keeping an eye on Neal’s daily program notes, to include the regular “Reading Assignments” bit.  Nestled into this past Thursday’s assignments was a defense of our current President’s achievements, harvested from the Daily Kos.

Now, while there’s a lot of material there- some of which, quite frankly, I am ill-equipped to comment on at all- my eye was initially caught by the leadoff point.  Yup, you guessed it, the recent healthcare reform bill. (Or maybe you didn’t guess it.  Who cares; keep reading.)  Nestled in amongst a bevy of subjective statements was this little gem:

“…ensuring coverage for all kids up till the age of 26…”

Now, at first, I just sort of chuckled and dismissed that line as shallow propaganda.  We’ve all heard that favorite political trump card… invoking the thought of a poor, defenseless child.  When it comes to emotion-based arguments, this is one of the big guns.  My first thought upon reading this was that calling a person in his/her mid-twenties a “kid” was a particularly egrerious abuse of the old “think of the children!” argument.  But the more I thought about it, the more I came to see it as something far more telling.

One of the things that distinguishes children from adults is dependence.  Children, to varying degrees by age, do not possess the ability to effectively fend for themselves.  They are dependent upon their parents or legal guardians, who (hopefully) provide for their children shelter, sustenance, moral support, etc.  A huge part of the transition to adulthood is the transition away from this dependence.  An infant who requires near-constant attention grows into a toddler who feeds and clothes himself; eventually, there’s a teenager who maybe works a part-time job and contributes to his newfound vehicular freedom, and so on.  As years go by, the ties of dependence become minimal; the new adult must earn his keep and figure out how to make use of a finite paycheck to fulfill his wants and needs.

In our current political environment, it’s becoming gradually more accepted to subvert this process.  Citizens keep expecting their government to provide more and more services and protections.  Instead of someone on a limited budget having to make a hard choice between medical insurance and a less-rattly car, they simply expect the government to provide the insurance, or to at least subsidize it.  It’s an attitude that goes far beyond just insurance- witness demands for government assistance with ill-planned mortgages, or even the current census rhetoric encouraging people to be sure they get their “fair share.”

It all boils down to one thing, really- increased dependence on some higher authority figure.  Expecting to be provided for.  Coming to believe that that dependence is not just acceptable, but preferred.  I’m not going to speculate on the motivation for encouraging this behavior- that could be a serious discussion all its own- but it’s an undeniable fact that the independence that adults traditionally not only accepted, but even took fierce pride in, is gradually fading.

In other words, it comes down to adults acting like children and being treated as such by the government.  Which, in turn, brings us back to the little one-liner that started this whole verbal hemmorhage:

“…ensuring coverage for all kids up till the age of 26…”

At first glance, it’s a mildly amusing perversion of terms, but on closer inspection, it’s more of a window into the entitlement mindset that’s feeding our country.  Something to think about.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
-David Herbert Lawrence

Ah yes, another long silence brought to you by your favorite procrastinator.  Fear not, I haven’t given up, though it has been over a week since I flew.  Most recently, I passed my written exam (last Saturday) and scheduled my checkride for what is now only six days away.  Overall, I feel ready, though I do need to notch in another 1.2 hours of solo time to officially meet the requirements.  The last week has been a lovely conglomeration of sickness for me, followed by four days of nasty weather when I actually got to feeling well again.

I did get in a few short flights recently; the Friday before last, Scott and I went up to Dahlonega (1A0) to get in some short-field practice.  That’s pretty much a requirement at 1A0, which is nestled in the foothills just south of the Chattahoochee National Forest, up near the North Carolina border.  I still don’t feel like I have the hang of making the steeper descent while effectively managing my airspeed, but I still managed to put the DA-20 down on the numbers a time or two.  Some more practice in this area is going to be called for prior to taking the big ride, one of the thing I intend to work on during my remaining solo time. (and probably some dual as well)  That flight also saw some soft-field practice back at PDK- I do much better at these, though I still feel I could put some work into setting the airplane down gently.

A few days later, I met Scott for a review session prior to my written exam.  Winds were up and gusty that day, so we took a break from the bookwork to head to LZU and expose me to a bit more of a challenge.  The wind played havoc with my pattern and approach, and I never did really get a good feel for putting the plane in a sideslip for a good final and touchdown- still, I got some much-needed experience, as well as a small slice of humble pie.  I’m hoping to get out on a day with a bit of crosswind just so I can work at getting a good feel for the fundamentals of sideslipping without the additional stakes of gusts to make things hairy.  This approach worked for me earlier, when I was working on coordinating my turns- some time over Lanier just banking the plane left and right got me doing well at that.

As of today, I met with Scott again and went through a mock oral exam, which also served the purpose of reviewing the items I missed on the written.  That was a bit of an eye-opener; there’s nothing quite as humbling as being asked a question and performing the “uhh…err..welllll…” routine.  Luckily, those didn’t happen a lot, and gave me some guidance as to areas that I can stand to shore up over the next few days.

So far, the weather is looking like it may cooperate next weekend, and the weather this week is mostly good, allowing ample opportunity to squeeze in a polish-up flight or two.  In the meantime, I’ve got information to gather and a cross-country to plan for inspection by The Man.

Well, OK, maybe that’s giving this a bit much credit.  The first version of this blog came about roughly two years or so ago, and my big plans didn’t actually work out that great.  Part of the problem was that I had intended for the bulk of the blog to eventually consist of chronicling my quest for my private pilot certificate, and since that didn’t come to pass as soon as I thought it might… well, that kind of put a damper on things.

But here I am, two years later, starting from scratch, and the reason is that thanks to the generosity of someone close to me, my dream of flight is finally going to be a reality.  It’s happening about five years later than I kind of expected, but such is life, I suppose.  Anyhoo, with the revelation of this wonderful gift and my fervent re-entry into the training scene, I decided it was time to start over clean here and get things going anew.

For the moment, things might look a bit odd here.  My primary impetus now is get my thoughts and experiences of the past week or so down while they’re fresh, even before I get the new blog theme worked out, so there will be a few posts in rapid succession here.  Anyway, I’ll cap this off now; I’ve still got more to write in other posts.