Musings: Hanging up my wings

No one was more surprised than myself. For me to stop thinking about soaring up into the wild blue would be inconceivable to anyone who knew me. During the 17 years I flew out of Turners Falls Airport (0B5) in western Massachusetts, my body would physically ache on gorgeous days when prior commitments kept me from sailing up, up, and away in my Cessna.

Through most of my adult life, I assumed one needed a Ph.D. in astrophysics to obtain a pilot certificate. A Piper-owning friend assured me it was a lot easier. Still, money and other life commitments prevented me from realizing my dream.

The decision to get my ticket occurred in a most unusual manner. In December 1994, I was invited to attend a weeklong conference of 200 Jews, Christians, and Buddhists at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. The event would commence with the celebration of the last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, under the camp’s main gate with its notorious slogan, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work sets you free). As photography was my passion at the time, I went to document the event.

It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. The current layout of Auschwitz is the camp as it existed in 1945. After returning to the States, I began an unexpected journey of writing articles about the Auschwitz conference for a variety of national and international magazines, as well as lecturing to thousands at audiences across the Northeast. In all, 18 months were spent submerged in the Holocaust, after which I felt psychically and emotionally poisoned.

I went into therapy to cleanse myself. At the final session, my therapist asked me, “You have done so much for others. What would you like to do for yourself?” The answer came immediately. “I want to get my pilot’s license.”

Eighty-five hours and countless crosswind landings later, I earned my certificate at the age of 47. I celebrated by flying the Hudson River Corridor in early February, and landing on Lake Winnipesaukee’s ice runway one week later.

I had a good run over the 17 years and 700 hours of my flight career. Mostly I flew locally just for the sheer beauty of being aloft. I usually flew after sundown. That twilight hour before official nighttime became my favorite time to fly. The soft illumination of the sky underscored by the twinkling lights of towns and isolated farmsteads was like soaring through an animated Disney landscape. To be on the wing during this entrancing period inspired me to resuscitate my art career after a 30-year absence.

After we arrived in Taos, New Mexico, in January 2014, my desire to fly evaporated. Weeks can go by without the thought of flying even entering my mind. My first explanation was that sitting here on my patio, I am already at 8,100 feet, 1,600 feet above my former cruising altitude, and greeted by a 50-mile view. As a friend of mine observed, “Dan, Taos has become your airplane.”

A deeper realization, however, forced me to admit that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Despite memorizing my Jeppesen manuals during my initial flight test in 1997 and passing every flight review since, I was more an artist behind the yoke than was healthy. There were too many details concerning the science and mechanics of aviating that were beyond my comprehension. I decided not to push my limits in a more exacting environment.

So I quit. At first, such a thought struck me as heresy. Much of my personal identity revolved around my being a pilot. My macho pride whispered I was acting “unmanly,” a strange thought for a sensitive New-Age guy like myself. Whether my decision was based on cowardice or wisdom, at age 66, I comforted myself with the adage about “old and bold pilots.”

These days find me content to sit on my patio and take in the million-dollar view over Taos Valley. I am proud to have made a lifetime dream of flight a reality, and equally relieved I knew when to hang up my wings without doubt or shame.

To those reading this, may your tailwinds always be strong, and may you never lose the wonder of being aloft in the wild blue.

Daniel A. Brown was a GA pilot with 700 flight hours in Cessna 150 and 152s. He is a retired public school teacher.