I was talking with my dad who is ex-RCAF. He was an Air Traffic Controller who also had a pilot’s licence. He told me some quotes attributed to the flying community over the years. Whether someone actually said them I can’t swear to but they make sense. He said, for example, that flying at night is the same as flying in the day, except you can’t see. I grew up on Air Force bases and I know that VFR stands for Visual Flight Rules and I thought IFR stood for Instrument Flight Rules but apparently it stands for I Follow Roads. One peek is worth a thousand instrument cross-checks. Once as I was getting ready to take a ride in a Harvard the pilot said, “Did you know the propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane to keep you cool? Want proof? If it stops watch yourself break out into a cold sweat”. Then he told me if you push the stick forward the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back they get smaller. He said there are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Flying is not dangerous, crashing is dangerous. It is better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here. And it is better to break ground and head into the wind than to break wind and head into the ground. Amen.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.