Fighter pilots

In April, I worked a NOLS canyons course with a Navy test squandron from California. The pilots and SAR folks were great, as was my co-instructor, and the desert and the canyons didn’t disappoint. But for the first time, I could see my self as a military pilot. While so focused on NASA for so long, I realized I had missed something far more attainable, though still very challenging, that I also would have loved. True, I don’t know exactly what it would have been like, but I find myself still grasping for where to aim now. Becoming an astronaut didn’t happen. Then suddenly, I was face to face with something I maybe could have reached. I know, it’s not all flying at Mach 2, but I saw a place I might have loved. The technical part of it all, the flying, the camaraderie, the mission, the speed, the focus. I’ve learned recently how much I crave the feeling of my mind being so engaged.

Whether I really should have gone into the military is debatable with who we had at various times as our commander in chief, but my heart still aches for part of it. These guys weren’t all Maverick and Ice Man but I think I could have been one of them. I did talk to recruiters in high school but I didn’t want to drop bombs and I didn’t really think I could hang with actual fighter pilots. Regardless, that door closed more than a decade ago. And who knows what would have really happened. So I guess I just need to focus on the present and a bit of the future…

And so I wonder what comes next? Forever trying to scratch the itch? I can still scratch it but not the way I want to. I’ll still fly, sail, climb, and do all the things I love, but I’m still on the hunt and maybe I’ll always be. As they say, there are no dress-rehearsals to this thing called life. So it goes.

November Update –

I worked another course surrounded by test pilots and again, it tugged at my heart strings. Questions rose and were put aside. Craving something that I can’t have, I have to look elsewhere. It’s not a lusty desire, but a genuine one in which I long to use my skills and focus and most of the time, I’m not in a place to do so in a sustained place. Going to Antarctica certainly does a bit of that. But it doesn’t have the speed that I long for. But just yesterday, NASA reopened its astronaut selection – two years early! I’ve been encouraged to apply again – an astronaut friend asked me, “What do you have to lose.” And so I’ll give it another go. It was the film Destiny In Space that reawakened my dream to become an astronaut when I was in high school. I thought, maybe it’s my destiny to go to space…sometimes I still feel like it is. So I’ll give it a go, and focus not on the fighter pilots but on the hard work to get my application, and prepare again for an interview that might not come. But it’s something to focus on. No speed yet, but the tiniest of hope still while I’m in my 40s. The oldest ever selected was 46. It’s still a long long shot, but it’s worth a bit of hope and dreaming. Maybe I’m on the path I been meant to be on. We’ll see if this thing called destiny is a real thing or not.

I’m on my way to the Ice now to work as a Communications Technician, which I’m psyched about. More to come about India!

Thanks for reading!