This was from my first semester of college in 2007. While there are a few errors that I STILL haven't caught in this essay, it is being published in a UAA article. Yipee!
Date: October 2, 2007
Secrets of Life and flight
When I first lifted off the ground in that helicopter, hearing the rotors spinning above my instructor and I, I got my first unexpected spiritual reminder that I am alive. It felt good to be in the air, and to be in that helicopter while it was hovering. I was anxious to learn. That day I didn’t have an idea just yet how that day was the first of a turn in events for the rest of my life, but much, much later, I would. Since then, I began to learn that there are many things that keep a helicopter aloft. Not just one. A part of a helicopter cannot operate without the help of something else. As my life improved and changed, I very gradually learned (up to this day) a human has to live life the same way. One dream doesn’t have to keep a person going. Many can, just as the four forces of flight keep an aircraft up in the air. A human reacts to life similar to how a helicopter operates and behaves while in flight. Most importantly, a helicopter is useless sitting on the ground without its engine running, its rotors spinning and the governor on controlling the Rotor RPM. Several things are needed to keep it going…
Obviously, a helicopter can take no action unless the engine is running and the rotors are spinning. A helicopter needs fuel, a pilot, and lift to fly, like a human needs water, air, and a dream or two to keep them going. A helicopter prefers balance as a human likes order and control. A helicopter reacts to weight and drag as a person relates to stress and consequences. Lift is equal to weight as thrust is equal to drag. Of course, drag and weight are negative, but they belong just as lift and thrust do. If a helicopter doesn’t have the forces of flight, fuel, a pilot and its tail rotor to counteract torque, it becomes unstable. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction-there wouldn’t be much of a world if the world itself didn’t have consequence.
From the first day I had my introductory flight that one summer when I was a freshman, a whole new world was revealed to me. This world was strange to me, intriguing. I wanted to know what this was all about, anything I could about this amazing aircraft. Not only was I curious about this, at the same time, I wondered what else my own life would be about. Was I already at a dead end, or would there be more things to come like the things I was going to learn about with this chopper? I had a simple idea of what kept this helicopter going, but not what kept me going.
All these strange ideas grew on me as the weeks progressed and the more I got into the chopper. The more I learned and improved, more secrets about life and flight were revealed simultaneously. It has been this way and still is this way as I continued to learn.
The helicopter was insanely mysterious when I first saw it on screen at the iMax theatre in Dallas, and later when was able to get a tour during a trip to Canada with my family. Eventually, I got a lesson in New Hampshire. I remember marveling over how smoothly the helicopter ran. I was stumped at how a person was to manage hovering. It was something I wanted to accomplish that seemed twice as hard as it looked. One way or another I was going to get it right. Grapevine and Dallas had no helicopter schools close to where we lived. Life was dull in Texas. It was hot, lonely, and claustrophobic. I hated it. I felt like there was nothing to do, and I felt different from my friends. Without money, fuel, and a pilot to operate the helicopter, it remains still. Trapped and unused, collecting dust. I felt unused and dusty. I needed out. I needed to fly.
Later, my dad got an offer from the oil business he still works for (called Pioneer) to move to Alaska. “What do you think of moving to Alaska?” he had asked. I never thought I would have a chance to move, let alone a place like Alaska. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” I remember saying something like that. Some lifting force told me it wouldn’t be so bad. I missed my friends, but not for long. Later on after we settled in, July fourth of 2004, I found Alpine Air, also known as Alyeska Helicopters. My mom and I did a glacier tour with them, and after the flight was over, we discovered they were also a school.
Things would get in the way from that point forward. But where there were problems, like money for lessons. And, later on after we became best friends, my current boy friend moved because of his dad being in the military, working on C130’s. From that point forward, I discovered a new kind of love, and the costs and consequences have been worth the effort since the day I met him. Weight is the opposing force of lift. I would start to learn what stress and determination was all about, and continued to learn even after he moved. Pain and grief are the worst form of weight and drag. Even after numerous struggles, I was thankful to realize he’s still there. When it came to straight and level flight, as long as I kept the helicopter balanced, it would remain stable. I eventually learned we were like this as well.
The engine is the heart. The carburetor heat scoop is the mouth. The throttle is the lungs. The collective is the leg. The skids are the feet. The fuselage is the body. The main rotor system the veins, the pulse-for they are constantly spinning and supply lift. Without the rotors to produce lift, the helicopter is lifeless. The arms are the cyclic. The rotor hub and swash plate are the neck and spine. The governor is the brain. The cockpit is the head. The pilot is the soul. Once we completed the checklist and crank the throttle, things got moving. It’s still interesting to me, how after that lesson, everything seemed to change.
Think ahead of the helicopter. Make tiny, steady movements with the cyclic. Don’t over react. Keep opposite pressure so the helicopter doesn’t drift when in a hover. I learned I couldn’t use my whole arm to raise or lower the collective at my left side. Lesson after lesson, I began to learn I had to gently nudge or pull the collective with the muscles in my fingers! When one hovers, it doesn’t take much arm power at all. It used to be I’d over correct all my movements, and the helicopter would swing about randomly while I tried to adjust until my instructor regained control. Gradually I was able to keep it at a fairly stable hover, and now it seems I’ve improved even further. I couldn’t let myself drift too far off course! I’m still working on getting my license, at mastering these things. It’s slow progress. Then again, so is my life, and waiting for him to move back to Alaska.
It took me a while to figure it all out. Memories containing bits and pieces of emotion and information here and there started to fit together like a giant puzzle in my mind. Now I have it. Just as a helicopter will have some amount of weight for it to have structure, we ourselves are made this way. Another form of weight (or drag, depending on how you look at it), is cost. And with structure, drag is always present. Drag and weight work hand in hand. They affect a person’s esteem, but it builds personality. You have to feel some amount of stress to be determined and accelerate, to produce enough thrust to move forward. It seemed to me (and still does) that life is costly, as a helicopter is costly. That I’m certain is true. There is no way around it. Nevertheless, we adapt and persevere. We accelerate. I had it a while ago, only it came in bits and pieces: tidbits of love, grief, pain and pleasure.
In one of my more recent lessons this year, I improved with setting down the helicopter, which is harder than it looks. It was a little bumpy, but I could do it. I could pick it up without it drifting to the right or left too much (though there was still room for improvement), and I could hover above the numbers on the runway much better than I could a few weeks before that. In the past, I didn’t realize all these things about life, love, and myself. However, I began to understand the things I didn’t learn right away. There are three things I’m passionate about have kept me going, my source of fuel. I never gave them up since he moved and have yet to. I concluded some outside force brought me to all these conclusions and my first love. Not me or helicopters. Something more like God Himself, if He exists. Through Him, helicopters have opened my eyes and mind to a new dimension of life.
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