Dear Prayer Partners, /// Keeping your eye on a landmark, faith, trust
As I walked the track today I was pondering a truth and making some connections from my childhood days on the farm that really stayed with me. As a boy, I really wanted to be able to do all the things that men do on the farm. Dad let me do a lot of things in the field that were beyond my years, and I know that in order for him to do that he had to settle for less than the best. One thing he never let me do was plant corn. One thing farmers wanted with corn planting was straight rows and the most important row was the first path through the field, because all the other paths through the field would work off the first path. If you got a hitch in the row on the first pass, every row would have a hitch in it after that. I sat on the fender as Dad planted, and he said, "Son, I'll show you how to make a straight row". He said, "You need to pick out something on the horizon way on the far side of the field and drive straight toward it and never take your eyes off it. You can't look back because if you do when your head turns, the steering wheel will turn and you'll have a crooked row. I watched him do it many times, but that is one job he never let me do".
I practiced his technique with other things. With a disk or a mower, whatever I was doing, I would practice making straight rows. The first cut through the field, I would find a landmark on the far side. I would stand up on the tractor and focus on the landmark. If I needed to look back to check the implement I was pulling I knew I had to stop the tractor, because if I turned my head, my shoulder would turn and there would be a crook in the line. It wasn't absolutely necessary to have everything be perfectly straight, it just gave me something to do while I was doing my work. Every thing looked nicer with straight rows.
Many of you know Jonathon Kreps. I taught Jon the lawn business and he worked his way through college with the lawn business. If you ask Jon today about it he will tell you that Bob told me I had to have straight lines. The job was just more professional if all the lines were straight.
You may wonder why I would be thinking of that today as I walked the track. Well, I was thinking about living the Christian life in all circumstances, and how I have learned to practice keeping my eye on the landmark all through life. One of my Prayer Partners picked up on this without me saying anything about it, but I am talking about it now. He said, "It seems to me you know how you should live and you're trying to live it out that way". That is exactly right.
It was because of serving in the Navy that I qualified for the GI bill. Under that bill I was entitled to some education and getting a commercial pilot's license qualified and the government would pay for it. I decided to take up flying. Learning the basics of flying, how to take off and land are relatively easy. The next biggest challenge is not getting lost. You learn to use landmarks and your compass to keep yourself oriented as to where you are. As a requirement of getting the student permit one had to make a solo cross country flight. For my cross country flight I decided to fly to Bemidji, Minnesota which is straight north of Willmar where I was flying from. All my training was done over agricultural land around Willmar where every square mile is laid out in a section with a road around it, so just by looking at section lines you could easily tell east, from north etc. That day, as I left the agriculture land, about north of Alexandria, I came to the land of lakes and forests. No more roads to mark the directions. Now I knew I really needed to depend on and believe the compass. I had the map on my lap and using pilotage, had planned the railroad tracks, highways, lakes, I could use for land marks and had calculated how many minutes it should take between landmarks. This is basic pilotage. As I nervously watched for the landmarks, and watching my map at the same time, my head was down every time I looked at the map. Then I would look at the compass to make sure I was still heading north. This one time, my head must have been down looking at the map longer than I thought. When I looked up, the compass said West. I thought to myself, that cannot be West. I haven't turned, it can't be West. I tapped the compass to make sure it was working. It was working, but it took me minutes that seemed like an hour to get my mental reality to agree with the compass reality. It was a frightening experience, so much so that I turned the airplane toward home and didn't finish the trip. It scared me how I could become so disoriented that I couldn't believe what the compass was telling me. As a student, that was frightening. As an experienced pilot and hearing about it, it's just funny because planes don't crash because you don't know where you are. But as a student, looking down and seeing nothing but trees and lakes and not knowing which direction home is, is scary.
A friend of mine had the same experience and flew to a town that had a water tower and flew low around the water tower to read the name of the town. We never stopped laughing at that one. So this was a simple example of the need to believe in what we say is true, in what we say we believe in.
As my flying progressed, I wanted to get my instrument rating. With a VFR License you can fly only when the sun is out, basically so you can see whereever you are going, not allowed to fly into a cloud because without training a pilot cannot fly into a cloud and survive more than three minutes. What happens is, you have an artificial horizon instrument that shows you where the horizon should be. When you turn, the artificial turns slant to show you the bank angle of the airplane. It sounds easy as you sit in your chair and think about it. The problem is, when you get into a cloud, you can't see anything. As you get a few bumps, which you can in a cloud, if you turn your head a little your inner ear starts playing tricks on you. You will think you are in a banking turn one way, let's say to the right, so you correct to the left. The truth is you weren't in a banking turn to the right, your body was just telling you that, so when you "corrected" you turned it into a banking turn to the left and you didn't know it. You think you are straight and level and you're not. It is called "vertigo". For a person who is not trained in how to deal with it, it is deadly. You can not survive it. So the first thing you need to learn is to trust your instruments and not your feelings. Your life depends on it.
There are a number of other things you need to learn to fly instruments, and it is really fun and challenging. You fly many hours "under the hood" with a hood on so you can't see outside the airplane. Of course there is a flight instructor with you to keep you from running into someone. You learn to do unusual attitudes, simulated instrument failures where the flight instructor covers up some instruments like the artificial horizon forcing you to use back up instruments, steep turns under the hood, all very interesting.
Then comes the day for passing the test, passing the check ride, and then your first solo IFR (instrument flight rules) flight. Mine was on a Monday morning. I had business in Fargo ND. I had a new Mooney airplane and was really excited for the trip. The ceilings were about 900 feet at Willmar and forecasted to be the same in Fargo. The tops of the clouds were to be at 8,000 feet so i expected to pop out on top and fly in the sunshine. I was looking forward to that because we had just had a long time of dark dreary days. I was looking forward to seeing the sun.
I filed my flight plan with the FAA. Taxied the airplane to the runway and received my clearance from Minneapolis Center. I took off visually. As I neared the base of the clouds I focused on the instruments. I went into the cloud and did a lot of self talk. Scan all the instruments, don't fixate on any one. I must be sure to tell if one is faulty and giving wrong information.
On reaching 3,000 feet I check in with Center and they clear me to six thousand feet. As I climb I start picking up some ice. Ice is something you really don't want in an airplane especially one that is not equipped for ice. As I reach six thousand feet I contact Minneapolis Center "reporting at six requesting 8,000. They don't clear me. I see ice forming on the leading edges of the wings, so I know it's on the prop as well. This is my first experience with ice. I ask myself, is this what it's supposed to be like? Finally I call Center and say "Minneapolis Center Mooney -------Hotel, picking up ice asking for higher. This time they clear me to 8,000 feet. At seven thousand feet it starts getting lighter at 7,500 feet I break out on top into beautiful sunshine. Wow! this is what flying is all about. The ice dissipates off the wings. I'm enjoying the sunshine on top of the clouds. I'm just looking all around so amazed at what instrument flying is all about. AS I approach Fargo Hector airport I'm instructed by Center to contact Fargo approach on Freq------. I have already gotten Fargo ATIS (weather) conditions and they are lower than expected. I contact Fargo approach and they clear me to descend to 3,000 feet and give me a heading that is going to lead me to the outer marker. The wind is out of the south so they are directing me to the north of the airport. They begin vectoring me around to cross the outer marker which will align me up with runway 18. They clear me to descend to 2,400 feet and report when established on the localizer. Established means on course, at the right altitude. I report established on the ling, outer marker inbound. They turn me over to the tower and tower tells me I'm cleared to land. At the outer marker I lower the landing gear. I have already slowed up to 80 knots so just lowering the gear creates just the right amount of drag on the airplane I begin to descend at 500 feet per minute, just what the approach chart calls for. Now I wait. I descend, proceeding toward the runway seeing nothing out the windshield. The minimums here are 200 feet. Passing through 500 feet still saw no runway. 400, 300, 200! Then there it is! The runway lights break through the fog. In an instant I'm on the ground and rolling out. Wow! What a thrill. Everything went just like it was supposed to. It was a thrill.
I spent they day doing my work in Fargo. At 5:00 pm am finished and reverse the procedure for the flight home. I climb out of Fargo, break out on top at 5,000 feet this time and see the sun sinking in the west. I feel like I'm the only person in the world, sitting here on top of the cloud, riding home. At Willmar, I'm cleared for the approach. I do the procedure turns, lined up with the runway and begin the descent. I break out of the cloud this time at 900 feet, and it's an easy visual landing. I hanger the airplane and driving home I can't wait to tell the family about my day.
At dinner that night I attempt to tell the family about the unbelievable day I just had. I've practiced so long with an instructor. I flew flight simulators to help me to believe the instruments. I went and did it and I sat in the sunshine. Then came down into the darkness, and the runway was right there, right where it was supposed to be. They said, "Oh really? Please pass the potatoes". It just didn't translate by the telling, yet it was the most unbelievable experience I had ever had to that point in an airplane.
I don't know how that story translates for you. For me it is such a lesson in belief and faith and what I had to do to get it.
It's difficult to believe. It's easy to say "I believe" but to believe is quite another thing. The Lord knows how hard it is for us to believe. Num. 14:11 "How long will they not believe in me" (Ps 27:13) I believe I that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait upon the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage, wait for the Lord!
It took me a long time to learn to trust the airplane and to believe in what the instruments were telling me. It also takes some time to get to know the Lord in a way we truly believe and trust in him, especially when it requires waiting. It takes practice. It takes going into the "simulator". For me going to his word every morning is like going into the simulator. If not to learn new things, it is to gain confidence in the repetition of what I already know. Just as a pilot is not safe if he does not practice and stay current in his training, so a Christian is not safe unless he is current in the word. It isn't just what have I done; it's, What have I done lately.
In Christ,
Bob
No comments:
Post a Comment