Saturday, September 5, 2009

Endevor To Persevere

One of my all time favorite movies is the 1976 Clint Eastwood film "The Outlaw Josey Wales." In the movie Wales met an old Indian Chief named Lone Watie. The Chief delivered a line that I sometimes think describes flying and flight training and aircraft ownership, at least as it relates to me. The line is "We thought about it for a long time, "Endeavor to persevere." And when we had thought about it long enough, we pursued our dream of flight." Well that may not be quite word for word but it is close. Most of us only fly or dream of flying some type of small aircraft. As you increase your level of training and expense the issues get bigger. Most of us associated with our club only want to fly for fun and fly safely and keep it affordable. In order to do this we must steal the line from Chief Lone Watie and "Think about it for a long time and endeavor to persevere" if we are to truly want to enjoy our sport. This is why a club atmosphere is so important. Mel Bole will tell you that without getting to know Dan Cooper and having a place to build his plane, he may not be flying today. Rob Fisher is building his plane with a lot of help and encouragement from Dan as well. Gary Morral is getting a lot of help from Wes McKinney in getting his Kolb in the air safely. Fred Ziegler bought his Aeroworks from a guy who said he would help him get it in the air only to have to go pick it up at the Ohio factory and start over. Ultralight training is not easy to find but we have people in the club that know they need training to be safe at what they enjoy and will pursue their flight training so that they can fly. I could go on and on but those of us who want to fly safe, affordable aircraft can take a tip from Chief Lone Waite of the Outlaw Josey Wales fame and think about our flying for a long time and "endeavor to persevere" and after you have thought about it long enough, consider pursuing your dream of flight.

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