I had a dream the other morning, part dream, part reverie, part memory.
I was flying over a valley, a sort of low area (depression) in a mountain area. It was partially surrounded by a mountain road where, in my dream, there was a team of people working with me on some exercise. This is why, in said dream, I wasn’t sure if I was flying a single-engine piston aircraft (most of the flying I’ve done), or a military jet aircraft like the CT-114 Tutor, which are well known as a former jet training aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the aircraft used by the RCAF Snowbirds (431 Air Demonstration Squadron).
Not important, as my work with the team below me didn’t figure prominently in the dream, and quickly faded away.
But the dream got my mind thinking (still in my sleep) about my “participation” (if you will) in the aviation industry. I miss it. I miss being involved in an industry where you can talk about something, and the person next to you knows exactly what you’re talking about. It’s not unique to the aviation business, as that comradery exists in most businesses/industries. I’ve experienced it in the IT business, but it’s not the same there because I work by myself at home and rarely do any socialising with fellow IT people. I used to, but the person I socialised with disappeared off the face of the planet. I think she’s still around, but not in my world. Aviation people are, but as I’m not in their business, there are no circumstances (or very few) under which we’d all find ourselves in a group, socialising, like at a pub. And even then, I no longer have the same experiences as them, so it would be like them talking to a child; not as much fun, not as interesting.
Oh well, I still miss it. I don’t pine for it in an unhealthy way, but I miss it. I miss talking about that time, in the East Practice Area, when I entered a spin (as you do in training) and found myself staring straight down … into the the cockpit of another Cessna 172 that was transiting the area, likely on their way to Chilliwack (YCW). It’s interesting, how your training kicks in and you immediately implement the recovery procedure you were going to implement in a few seconds anyway, but your body takes over and you do it without thinking. It’s interesting to reminisce about that with friends, some of whom might have been in an exactly similar position in their lives, or might have even been in that exact Cessana 172 that I was in danger of hitting! It’s interesting to talk about the approach into Alert Bay, or CFB Moose Jaw, or that time you were vectored onto the localiser at LHR, only to have to do a go-around because they vectored you in too high to descend safely! Ah, those were the days.
In my dream, I even considered where I was. If it was mountainous terrain, it was almost certainly just about anywhere in British Columbia, but I remember taking off from Sechelt airport (I think it was) years ago in a fully-loaded Cessna 172 (myself and three passengers, my parents and a sibling) and, at the end of the runway, the land dropped away and we flew over what I would call a geographically depressed area. I don’t have a memory of a depressed area as big as the one in my dream, but I remember that area — which, as I say, I think was in Sechelt — and how it could have been the end of me and my family if we had not managed to climb out in time. Good times that you only remember if you have someone to share them with over a beer … or you’re writing a blog post about them.
Anyway, those days are passed. But I do remember them with fondness.