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Editorial: Attitude

By Tracy Crook. Originally published in the Rotary Aviation News Issue 2, 1998

Eavesdropping on the human race has always held an attraction for me. That’s why the ‘Opinion’ section of the paper is one of the first things I read every morning. It can give you an insight into where John Q. Public’s head is on any given subject. Sometimes it is a source of hope and joy and sometimes it’s downright depressing.

Conversations overheard at fly-ins are equally diverse. When I overhear these, I’m usually looking for an answer to why so many people with a strong desire to fly their own plane don’t follow through on it. There are hundreds of reasons but two of them in particular pique my interest. While standing with the crowd watching the airshow at Sun ‘n Fun this year, I heard both in one conversation. I’m paraphrasing a much longer conversation but it went something like this: Guy 1 “You’ve always liked this stuff, why don’t you build one of those?” Guy 2 “Homebuilts are OK but they’re not those” (nodding toward a pair of F16s parked nearby) “If I can’t fly jets, forget it”. After a few more minutes of watching the airshow, Guy 2 finally says, “What about you, why don’t you build something?” Guy 1 replies, “I could never build an airplane. I’d probably kill myself if I tried”.

At first glance these two guys seem to be at opposite ends of the world. One sounded supremely confident in his abilities and wanted the ultimate challenge for them. The other saw the challenge as far beyond what he could ever handle. Still, I think they were very much in the same boat. Both of them badly wanted to fly but their attitude kept them grounded.

I couldn’t personally identify with the fighter-jock wanna-be. Sure, mastering an airplane like the F16 is no doubt challenging and I’d swap rides with an F16 driver in a heartbeat. But when it comes to our ‘aviation lives’, I wouldn’t trade for all the jets ever built.

Let’s say you get to the very top of the pyramid and become an Air Force test pilot. First of all, someone else tells you which airplane to fly. They don’t let you have anything to say about how it is designed, built or changed. Then you fly it precisely when, where and how you are told to. Guess I’m not cut out for the job; this has all the appeal of being a taxi driver to me.

As to which is the greater challenge, homebuilding would seem to win hands down. Even if you don’t choose to design your own airframe, there are hundreds of existing designs to choose from. Then you have the freedom to build it exactly per the plans or make whatever changes you want. And of course that all important decision on how to power the thing and the hundreds of details to work out before it comes to life.

I may be guilty of hyperbole here but the A.F. test pilot’s job seems mundane in comparison. Climbing into the cockpit and advancing the throttle on a machine that you made virtually every decision on is as exciting as it gets. Anyone who can’t find enough challenge in homebuilding is probably looking for something else.

It may come as a surprise but it was much easier for me to identify with the guy who thought he could never build a plane. As a kid, I grew up wondering how all the things around me were made. I knew nothing about machine tools, welding equipment or any other manufacturing process. As far as I knew, all the things around me were made by men with super-human abilities that I could not imagine. Metal itself was a mystery and I marveled at how anyone could form this seemingly indestructible stuff into useful things. I was in awe of the unknown people who could do it and had no hope of ever becoming one of them.

School appeared totally unrelated to the mysteries I was interested in. My days in the classroom were spent longing to be free of this drudgery so that I could figure out the things that really mattered. It was so bad that I flunked second grade and had to repeat it. If anyone had explained to me that the questions burning in my head were all answered in books, my attitude would have been much different. It was well into secondary school before I made this “discovery”.

The process of learning to believe in my own abilities was a slow one but there were memorable milestones. The day my brother and I made a crude welding machine from an old transformer stands out as one of them. The first work we did with it was not pretty but we were actually able to cut and join steel. I felt that I had acquired god-like power. Now, anything was possible.

The point I am making is that no one needs to feel that the ability to build an airplane is beyond them. All it takes is some basic information and especially, the right attitude.