Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal #5:
\nSchool for Perfection
\nMany years ago a writer created tremendous excitement with a bestselling book. The book was \u201cJonathon Livingston Seagull\u201d and the writer was Richard Bach.
\nThe \u201cBird Book\u201d was followed by several others, including \u201cIllusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah\u201d. Bach was THE aviation writer of his time, although his themes were universal and concerned with life as much as flying. He took his place in a line of great aviation writers including Earnest Gann, Antoine d\u2019St Exupery and, my favorite, Neville Shute. Shamefully, there are now many young pilots who have never heard of Richard Bach or any of those others.
\nDuring his peak years of popularity, Bach published a book that didn\u2019t get the acclaim of his others. It was called \u201cA Gift of Wings\u201d and was a collection of short stories that he had written for aviation magazines. Among those stories were \u201cFound at Pharisee\u201d and \u201cSchool for Perfection\u201d. They were fantasies featuring a dashing bandit pilot named Drake and his henchmen. The outlaws operated out of a hidden cave\/hangar complex and ran a school which taught flying from its most basic and elemental parts. \u201cFound at Pharisee\u201d was delightfully told in the first person by a pilot who exemplified minimum standards training, who thought safety lay in blind obedience to the regs (wow, do I meet a lot of THOSE) and through whose outraged eyes we met the band of outlaw pilots. The outlaws scoffed at any regulation. They preferred common sense and the mastery of flying skills. They would have nothing to do with the minimum standards of flight instruction or mechanics\u2019 licensing.
\n\u201cSchool for Perfection\u201d featured the school seen through the eyes of a dispirited flight instructor who had just lost a student. Drake\u2019s school rejuvenated him. These stories had a huge influence on my career and particularly my approach to flight instruction.
\nThe outlaws may have attained perfection in the art of flying, but none of us will ever reach it in the pilot operations we practice. However, it seems to me that as long as we seek that perfection, we will continue to improve our flying skills and achieve a level of competence far beyond minimum standards.
\nSatisfaction with minimum standards will always be the subject of my primary \u201crant\u201d and it may just be Richard Bach\u2019s fault.
\nYou can order \u201cA Gift of Wings\u201d from Amazon.com and other sources. I just ordered a few to stock in my little store at Sunriver Soaring. It belongs in every real pilot\u2019s library.
\nHappy reading,
\nBrian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal #5: School for Perfection Many years ago a writer created tremendous excitement with a bestselling book. The book was \u201cJonathon Livingston Seagull\u201d and the writer was Richard Bach. The \u201cBird Book\u201d was followed by several others, including \u201cIllusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah\u201d. Bach was THE aviation writer of his time, although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}