My eyes widened and my heart lept when I read the following. It is the forward in the book, "Fly The Biggest Piece Back". I'd say he's been there, and how.
If I could write, I'd write of summertime and early-morning flight; of pink-tinged mountain peaks with their green firs robed in ermine white; of silver rivers far below winding through multicolored canyons; of soft, gray, stratus clouds dissolving before the sun's first bright rays.
I would try to tell of the pilot's highway, wide as the world itself; of the peace and eternal solitude and the deep sense of adventure while gliding through shadowy corridors among the ever-changing cumulus clouds; of the sweet song of the motor's roar, and of breathing the cold, clean air high above the earthbound dust and smoke as the remote earth, so very far below, breaks into a million sunlight and shadowing patterns.
If I could write, I'd try to tell you of a midday flight when the sun's hot breath has awakened every devilish air current; of a plane being tossed around like a loose leaf before winter's early winds. I would describe that awful feeling of aloneness--the chill of terror--and how mere seconds creep by like old and worn-out years as those wind devils slam your plane toward bleak canyon walls, your controls as dead as yesterday's dreams. I'd write of the quick panic you try to hold away as you wait for that life-saving cushion of air that you can only hope is trapped beside the canyon wall. I guess I'd even try to make you feel the deep inside hurting of an over-worked, over-heated motor fighting for precious altitude while those demanding downdrafts are pulling you down, down, down. I might even tell you how little and insignificant you feel when a thousand crazy air currents have grabbed your plane and are shaking it like a hungry cur shakes a meatless bone; of the plane falling faster than the pull of gravity, and of the chaotic thoughts within your mind while you wait for the solid air to stop your fall, wondering if man-made wings are strong enough to take the shock.
If I could write, I'd write of winter flights when the deep, white snows have hidden and locked away every meadow and glade wherein a plane could find a haven; of black storms chasing one another at mile-a-minute speeds; of sullen clouds, pregnant with snow, dragging their bloated bellies along the ground, hiding every familiar landmark, and of flying in blizzards when the visibility is less than one hundred feet and a hundred mile seem like a million. I'd write of the dull, clumsy, dead weight of a plane loading up with ice, and of the anguished gasp of a radial motor breathing only wet and freezing air. I might even try to tell you how it feels to be boxed in by the storms, of the helplessness that permeates your whole being while you are using all of the skill, cunning and knowledge that you have accumulated in a lifetime of flying just to hold death away a little longer. I'd write of how you will look at your hands on the controls and marvel at the wonderful flesh-and-blood mechanisms that they are, and wonder just how much longer they will have the life and power to obey the commands of your brain.
I would also tell of how your heart swells to almost a breaking point when you finally get through, and of how good the cold, clean ground feels beneath your feet, ground that only moments before you had thought you would never again feel and walk on.
If I could write, most of all I'd write about how good human companionship is after one of those flights; of how a baby's cry, a child's laughter, a woman's smile or a friendly touch is worth more than the tinkle of golden coins in a blind beggar's cup. But what I could never hope to write about is that inconceivable pull, that ever-constant compulsion--stronger and more demanding than steel cables--that persists in taking you back and back, as though your soul were a veritable fragment of the air you breathe and fly in. Of this I could never write, for I do not have the humble understanding that belongs to God alone.
--Bill Woods
A long-time Idaho mountain pilot
