Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
The Purpose of An Aviator
Not too long ago, I posted a topic asking what people thought the meaning and purpose of living is to them. I stated outright that I knew what I thought it was, and that I'd share later on. At the time, the exact words eluded me, and the subject was set aside. Upon further reflection, I think I'm ready to speak on the subject.
I suppose the more important idea here is that the purpose of an individual depends largely on what kind of person that person is. For those of us in aviation, you might suppose that most of us are of a similar nature. I certainly do. Given that, I'm going to speak to the majority of us here by addressing us all as 'aviators' and will leave it at that.
So what, then, is the purpose of an aviator? To define a purpose one must examine not the emotional context or compensation one receives but the meaning that purpose imparts upon the greater whole of society. To state it simply, an aviator's purpose is to get people and materials where they need to go. The problem with leaving such a simple answer to such a deep and meaningful question is that the answer is not deep or meaningful. Aviators (and those who support them) are not simply a means of transport. There is a greater meaning and relevance to society that deserves examination. (You might not know this unless I told you, but I paused to take a sip of bourbon before I continued developing this statement.)
The greater meaning of the purpose of an aviator lies not in how we do what we do but why we do what we do. To answer that, we have to ask why people want to move themselves and other materials elsewhere. We need to know why people go to such lengths to place themselves or other objects the span of the world away from where they began their journey.
The answer to that question is that it is inherently a human trait to question the unknown. Whether it is a question of what lay beyond the horizon or how the world might change if we place ourselves beyond that horizon, people seek answers to the mysteries of our existence. We strike out to explore our surroundings, and having come to know them, we step forward once again to find out what might lay beyond them. It is inherent in all that is human to strive to know more than we did the day before. In that pursuit, we have continually sought new ways to expand not only our knowledge but our means of collecting that knowledge.
Aviators are no exception to this rule. In fact, aviators exemplify this rule. Throughout the history of aviation, time and time again it was the thirst for knowledge and new capability that drove things forward. From the earliest experiments of Wilbur and Orville Wright to the manned spacecraft lifting off around the world today, “farther, higher, faster” has always driven them. Aviators are driven to exceed that which has been done before in order to know what was previously not known. Aviators, at their most basic, are pioneers.
While aviators may stand out in civilization, we cannot stand alone. Our pursuits require the collaboration and cooperation of many. Our achievements have been adopted to serve many. In these doings, many of us have found a niche that did not exist in the earliest of days. Through commerce, we found livelihoods and careers. Through industry, we found a means to provide for our families. That said we also found something that the rest of civilization has found. Stagnation. As the commercialization and globalization of the world continue, the drive to reach forever higher and farther have been replaced. In their stead we have the reach for higher revenues and greater profitability. The pioneers of travel and industry that stood with aviators in the infancy of commercial aviation have fallen away and have been replaced by spreadsheets and earnings reports. In an era where people fail to look beyond the next financial quarter we have taken our eyes off the horizon. We have lost our vision. In that failing and that failing alone have we come to question our purpose. When we no longer knew our purpose with certainty we then failed to know our worth. The aviation profession has fallen on dark times.
Dark times have come home to roost for aviators, but not because our pensions are under siege and our salaries are slowly chipped away. We have come upon dark times because a profession that was once a calling to the bold, adventurous, pioneering spirits of old has become anything but. In the place of the pioneering spirit the calling of aviation has become a traveling circus. We have allowed ourselves and the calling of aviation to be reduced to a small distraction from the tedium of life. Our airports are shabby ticket booths, and our collective workplace a dimly lit hall of mirrors.
We have only ourselves to blame. In the heyday of high salaried pilot positions, much ado was made about the merit of pilots. Once suitably compensated, we sat idly back and assumed that all was well. Since Deregulation in 1978, the airline pilot community (and many others as a result) has seen a slow decline from what formerly was. While the methods and reasons we are no longer compensated or treated so well are thinly veiled shams, we have to realize that the world in which those circumstances existed no longer exists at all. To try to “Take back the glory days!” is a fool’s errand. We cannot recreate a time that has passed us by. Instead, we must look to the future, and evolve, and find better, smarter ways to create a better world for all involved.
That’s the entire key, really. A pioneer sets forward to create a better world. Be it to set out and homestead on land they can call their own, or to pioneer in the metaphorical sense through discovery and insight, a pioneer strives to make things better than they have been. Aviators at their most basic are pioneers. When we fail to recognize that in ourselves, we fail as aviators.
It was once suggested to me that aviators are perpetual malcontents. The underlying reason for that, in my opinion, is that we are not content to stay where we are. We are driven onward, and forward, because that is the nature of a pioneer. From the first time aloft at Kittyhawk, to the first successful drop of ‘Glamorous Glennis’ from a modified B-29, to the first manned spaceflight, to the first footprints on the moon, our movement forward in the modern age has been lead by aviators.
In the Old West, we were the Pony Express. When technology evolved, we were train conductors and engineers. When carriage misplaced its horse and doctors thought speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour would make blood boil, we were the first race car drivers. When world went to war, we expanded the battlefield into the third dimension. We brought war to a newer, more terrifying height over the skies of London. In recognition of the destruction and suffering we brought upon each other, it was aviators who were the first to extend the hand of reconstruction in the windswept heights over Berlin. When commerce said, “we need to get it there faster than before,” it was aviators who did so. When bringing people together face to face meant a better way, a faster way, we were there.
Time and time again, aviators have been the vanguard of the pioneer spirit of the modern age.
In my own aviation career, I have had the benefit of a range of experiences in how aviation can make the world better. I’ve seen how turbine engines screaming through the flight levels can shrink the globe. I’ve seen how we safely convey people about their world and throughout their lives as we pass through the dimly lit corridors of time. I’ve had the honor and privilege to be the refuge of safety and conveyance to mercy for the wounded on the battlefield.
I have seen first-hand what it can mean to the understanding of a people to see the look of gratitude and friendship in the face of someone from a culture so distant and so different you would not have believed they existed. I have seen the beginnings of peace.
As time passes, the human race will strive grow onward, and upward, and will need pioneers to take it there. Aviators are among the few that will pioneer the way forward for that undertaking.
To live life as an aviator is to be a pioneer. To live as a pioneer is to challenge convention. To say that there is a better way and that with a little work and little ingenuity and a little effort, we can find it. We act as guides to people seeking their paths through life and transport them safely not just to new places on the globe but to new places in their lives. We lead them boldly into the wilderness of the unknown future. In pursuit of that unknown, greater future, we all carry collective society forward.
That’s what living as an aviator means to me.
Not too long ago, I posted a topic asking what people thought the meaning and purpose of living is to them. I stated outright that I knew what I thought it was, and that I'd share later on. At the time, the exact words eluded me, and the subject was set aside. Upon further reflection, I think I'm ready to speak on the subject.
I suppose the more important idea here is that the purpose of an individual depends largely on what kind of person that person is. For those of us in aviation, you might suppose that most of us are of a similar nature. I certainly do. Given that, I'm going to speak to the majority of us here by addressing us all as 'aviators' and will leave it at that.
So what, then, is the purpose of an aviator? To define a purpose one must examine not the emotional context or compensation one receives but the meaning that purpose imparts upon the greater whole of society. To state it simply, an aviator's purpose is to get people and materials where they need to go. The problem with leaving such a simple answer to such a deep and meaningful question is that the answer is not deep or meaningful. Aviators (and those who support them) are not simply a means of transport. There is a greater meaning and relevance to society that deserves examination. (You might not know this unless I told you, but I paused to take a sip of bourbon before I continued developing this statement.)
The greater meaning of the purpose of an aviator lies not in how we do what we do but why we do what we do. To answer that, we have to ask why people want to move themselves and other materials elsewhere. We need to know why people go to such lengths to place themselves or other objects the span of the world away from where they began their journey.
The answer to that question is that it is inherently a human trait to question the unknown. Whether it is a question of what lay beyond the horizon or how the world might change if we place ourselves beyond that horizon, people seek answers to the mysteries of our existence. We strike out to explore our surroundings, and having come to know them, we step forward once again to find out what might lay beyond them. It is inherent in all that is human to strive to know more than we did the day before. In that pursuit, we have continually sought new ways to expand not only our knowledge but our means of collecting that knowledge.
Aviators are no exception to this rule. In fact, aviators exemplify this rule. Throughout the history of aviation, time and time again it was the thirst for knowledge and new capability that drove things forward. From the earliest experiments of Wilbur and Orville Wright to the manned spacecraft lifting off around the world today, “farther, higher, faster” has always driven them. Aviators are driven to exceed that which has been done before in order to know what was previously not known. Aviators, at their most basic, are pioneers.
While aviators may stand out in civilization, we cannot stand alone. Our pursuits require the collaboration and cooperation of many. Our achievements have been adopted to serve many. In these doings, many of us have found a niche that did not exist in the earliest of days. Through commerce, we found livelihoods and careers. Through industry, we found a means to provide for our families. That said we also found something that the rest of civilization has found. Stagnation. As the commercialization and globalization of the world continue, the drive to reach forever higher and farther have been replaced. In their stead we have the reach for higher revenues and greater profitability. The pioneers of travel and industry that stood with aviators in the infancy of commercial aviation have fallen away and have been replaced by spreadsheets and earnings reports. In an era where people fail to look beyond the next financial quarter we have taken our eyes off the horizon. We have lost our vision. In that failing and that failing alone have we come to question our purpose. When we no longer knew our purpose with certainty we then failed to know our worth. The aviation profession has fallen on dark times.
Dark times have come home to roost for aviators, but not because our pensions are under siege and our salaries are slowly chipped away. We have come upon dark times because a profession that was once a calling to the bold, adventurous, pioneering spirits of old has become anything but. In the place of the pioneering spirit the calling of aviation has become a traveling circus. We have allowed ourselves and the calling of aviation to be reduced to a small distraction from the tedium of life. Our airports are shabby ticket booths, and our collective workplace a dimly lit hall of mirrors.
We have only ourselves to blame. In the heyday of high salaried pilot positions, much ado was made about the merit of pilots. Once suitably compensated, we sat idly back and assumed that all was well. Since Deregulation in 1978, the airline pilot community (and many others as a result) has seen a slow decline from what formerly was. While the methods and reasons we are no longer compensated or treated so well are thinly veiled shams, we have to realize that the world in which those circumstances existed no longer exists at all. To try to “Take back the glory days!” is a fool’s errand. We cannot recreate a time that has passed us by. Instead, we must look to the future, and evolve, and find better, smarter ways to create a better world for all involved.
That’s the entire key, really. A pioneer sets forward to create a better world. Be it to set out and homestead on land they can call their own, or to pioneer in the metaphorical sense through discovery and insight, a pioneer strives to make things better than they have been. Aviators at their most basic are pioneers. When we fail to recognize that in ourselves, we fail as aviators.
It was once suggested to me that aviators are perpetual malcontents. The underlying reason for that, in my opinion, is that we are not content to stay where we are. We are driven onward, and forward, because that is the nature of a pioneer. From the first time aloft at Kittyhawk, to the first successful drop of ‘Glamorous Glennis’ from a modified B-29, to the first manned spaceflight, to the first footprints on the moon, our movement forward in the modern age has been lead by aviators.
In the Old West, we were the Pony Express. When technology evolved, we were train conductors and engineers. When carriage misplaced its horse and doctors thought speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour would make blood boil, we were the first race car drivers. When world went to war, we expanded the battlefield into the third dimension. We brought war to a newer, more terrifying height over the skies of London. In recognition of the destruction and suffering we brought upon each other, it was aviators who were the first to extend the hand of reconstruction in the windswept heights over Berlin. When commerce said, “we need to get it there faster than before,” it was aviators who did so. When bringing people together face to face meant a better way, a faster way, we were there.
Time and time again, aviators have been the vanguard of the pioneer spirit of the modern age.
In my own aviation career, I have had the benefit of a range of experiences in how aviation can make the world better. I’ve seen how turbine engines screaming through the flight levels can shrink the globe. I’ve seen how we safely convey people about their world and throughout their lives as we pass through the dimly lit corridors of time. I’ve had the honor and privilege to be the refuge of safety and conveyance to mercy for the wounded on the battlefield.
I have seen first-hand what it can mean to the understanding of a people to see the look of gratitude and friendship in the face of someone from a culture so distant and so different you would not have believed they existed. I have seen the beginnings of peace.
As time passes, the human race will strive grow onward, and upward, and will need pioneers to take it there. Aviators are among the few that will pioneer the way forward for that undertaking.
To live life as an aviator is to be a pioneer. To live as a pioneer is to challenge convention. To say that there is a better way and that with a little work and little ingenuity and a little effort, we can find it. We act as guides to people seeking their paths through life and transport them safely not just to new places on the globe but to new places in their lives. We lead them boldly into the wilderness of the unknown future. In pursuit of that unknown, greater future, we all carry collective society forward.
That’s what living as an aviator means to me.
