Have you ever noticed that you could talk to a complete stranger or rather anyone you come across and as soon as you both mention being a pilot, you can automatically talk like friends with a very common passion. Smiles then rise off both faces and immediately ask what you fly and about the airplanes themselves. It no longer matters what your background is, how famous you are, how rich you are, or you're surroundings. For that instant, that second in time, you both share a part of a small and distinct family called aviators.
I came across this remembered realization from a very brief phone conversation tonight. My mom had gone to a concert in our home town where Little Texas was playing. If you know your country, They play "God Bless Texas." If you know your aviation music, one of the band members, Dwayne O'Brien, created the CD called "Song Pilot" with his Pitts biplane on the front. When it was my mom's chance at an autograph, she asked a simple favor of saying hello to me on the phone and mentioned I was an aviator myself. I expected a quick, "hello" and be done. But he gave a very supprising, "really? Yea, I'd love to talk!" He sounded surprised that we knew he was a pilot. As soon as he got on the phone, I told him my name and instead of him hanging up, he asked me what I flew. "Right now I'm flying a cessna 172" Dwayne: "Really? I got my private in a 172 in Oklahoma, I have a Pitts now" Me: "Yep, the Pitts is on your CD" Dwayne: "You have the CD? Thats awesome!! Thank you very much!!" I was in slight shock to be thanked, I didn't know what to say other than, "You're welcome!" After that, he had to head back to his autographs, so I said it was nice to meet him and the conversation was over. I guess to me of course it was inspiring to talk to someone famous but it was so awesome he took the time to say hello because we had a common bond, flying. And for some reason, it makes me special and others like me in the same way. So when others may just go on with their lives and think that was just neat, I thought I might share the brief appreciation for who we are and another reason of why we fly. It resembles so much to POA in the fact that some of us are Doctors, Lawyers, students, businessmen, war veterans, or simple weekend aviators, we share a common bond that can't be broken no matter who we are. We are a family, we are lovers of flight.
Dwayne O' Brien's "People, Places, and Planes"
"....As I taxi to the tie down with a grin a mile wide getting smiles and waves from every space as I pass by. It's like no other feeling I've known, to cover 1500 miles and I'm still right at home..."
Forever a Pilot at heart,
Tristan
