"It's A Wonderfully Difficult Life"

Somewhere back in the early 90's, I was a C-141 pilot flying regular missions for the US State Department all over the world. On one particular mission, I had taken off from Singapore headed to Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean. As our jet was crossing the Thai Peninsula, the copilot and I were doing our navigation accuracy check—the final check to make sure our inertial navigation systems (INS) were within tolerance.

In short, this technology was the predecessor of today’s current GPS, and while generally reliable, it was not nearly as accurate as GPS. Consequently, there was a need to double check the integrity of the system by comparing the position the INS had calculated for itself with ground-based navigation radio stations. The INS system uses gyroscopes and the equivalent of a Commodore 64 computer to measure linear acceleration and angular velocity to determine position and speed among other things. Generally reliable, but when you are about to go “feet wet” over the open water, you’d really like to know that all is well. It tends to make the task of finding a really small island embedded in a really large ocean much easier. As my copilot and I concluded our check it became obvious that one of our two INS systems was out of tolerance as delineated in our operating manual. Barely out of tolerance, but out of tolerance, nonetheless. Ordinarily, we would not be permitted to continue the oceanic portion of the flight, and in this case, it would mean landing somewhere in Chang Mai or U-Tapao, Thailand and waiting for maintenance technicians from the nearest US base in Okinawa to fly in and inspect/repair the system. That was easily a 2-day process at best and not a very good option for a mission of this priority. I had flown these missions for the US State Department regularly to 6 of the 7 continents and over 150 countries, and they were of very high importance. As such, there were allowances that permitted those of us flying these missions to deviate from the regulations if doing so was generally considered to be safe in the discretion of the pilot in command. That was me, and it was gut check time. Having been taught to fly jets by the US Air Force, I had all the tools I needed to make a good decision. Mostly, I knew I had a lot of smart people on board with a ton of experience— the other pilots, the flight engineers, and in this case Jeff, the mission coordinator for the State Department. Jeff was a retired Lt Colonel and navigator for the Air Force—a smart guy that I trusted and had flown with many times before. I called on the intercom to the back of the jet and had Jeff woken up to brief him on what was occurring. Jeff and I discussed our options and made sure we liked our plan, the back-up plan, and the back-up plan to the back-up plan. This all happened fairly quickly, after all, we were at 35,000 feet and traveling 7 miles a minute (i.e. not a lot of time to burn precious fuel going in wrong direction).

Jeff lingered in the cockpit for a while with a coffee and we did a bit of hangar flying (i.e. the equivalent of “the one that got away” for fishermen). Jeff told me of some stories of his days as a young navigator on the C-141 during Vietnam. He showed me in the plane’s operating manual where one particular WARNING was placed and the reason for it. It existed as a result of an accident that killed a friend of his. A brief but terse reminder of the nature of the profession I had chosen. Our conversation meandered into stories of aviation that predated both of our aviation careers—World War II. We thought of our fellow crew members that had been “flying the hump” into China to feed those behind the Japanese enemy lines. Those pilots flew DC-3's and C-47's and were issued fleece-lined jackets, boots, and gloves to keep their extremities from freezing during the flight. They also had to worry about the potential for a lack of oxygen. The pilots found their way across the Himalayas without GPS, without INS, without radar, and without air traffic controllers. They relied on raw navigation data from their navigator and his ability to shoot the stars and the sun, along with some maps that were more like renderings, created most certainly without the benefit of satellite technology. We lamented on how much respect we had for those aviators. And we laughed at ourselves a bit as we sipped on a cup of coffee at 35,000 feet and reminded ourselves just how many more resources we had available to the aviators of 1993 as compared to 1943. Our job was much easier and much safer. For a brief moment we felt “less than” those heroes of many years ago. Yet grateful that we lived in a time where things were easier and safer.

I have looked back on that flight often during my career. As a pilot for one of the major US airlines, my job is more carefully scripted then some 25 years ago in the Air Force. Today I travel to all the major cities in the world with facilities and services contracted by my airline to handle all of our needs. Planes are more reliable due to improvements in aircraft design and manufacturing, more robust communications, and technology in general. As a result, there is a “bubble” of additional protection around my aircraft at all times that simply did not exist 25 years ago. It’s a good thing and makes air travel as safe as it is. I will say it again--I am incredibly grateful. As I reflect on this further, I am amazed at two things: First, that an object that weighs nearly 800,000 pounds can fly, and second, that I can pinpoint my personal location in any city in the world down to a matter of feet on a phone that has more computing power than the computers used to get our astronauts to the moon and back in 1969. All this to say, all these observations remind me of a favorite movie and the opening line from one of my favorite books:

It’s A Wonderful Life, because “it” is, and

“Life is difficult” because it is, (from The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck)

Reconciling the balance of those two truths is the challenge of life I have discovered in the 25 years since I flew that mission. Gratitude in all things good laced with a healthy respect for what life’s hardships may bring is essential. Tough times come, and they go. Sometimes the tough times linger a bit longer, such as those days in World War II, and as the time we find ourselves today with the Corona virus. I am grateful for the multitude of acts of selflessness by our first-responders in healthcare, as well as people around the world doing their disciplined part to solve the problem. I hear friends, colleagues and complete strangers talking and posting about how eager they are to tip handsomely the restaurant staff the first chance they get to go out to eat to help jumpstart this economy. I see a “militia” armed with sewing machines producing some of the needed “ammunition” needed to resupply our troops so we can defeat this enemy. It seems to me that we have successfully put on our “fleece” and strapped ourselves in for the bumpy ride to get over our "hump.”