I don’t recall all the reasons that initially attracted me to aviation, but one of the things that’s kept me interested and active over the years is its dynamic nature. Not only are you moving through the air at some worthwhile speed, looking down on the world, but what you do next and where you end up can be totally at your whim. Flying can be the ultimate in flexibility.
And flexibility certainly is part of the dynamism I associate with flying. But that kind of thinking really only applies on a good-weather day with full tanks. Aviation’s dynamic nature extends to and is influenced by its environment, just like most other things I suppose. Conditions change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. And the changing conditions we contend with—weather, fuel, mechanical mischief, traffic and fatigue, to name a few—can combine to present a completely new situation even to pilots with thousands of hours’ experience. If all that sounds challenging, it is, which by itself is yet another attraction to flying, at least for me.
