It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it.

During this period Steen and Fox were killed trying a single-engine instrument approach at Moline. Then Campbell and Leatherman hit a ridge near Elko, Nevada. In both incidents the official verdict was 'pilot error,' but since their passengers, who were innocent of the controls, also failed to survive, it seemed that fate was the hunter. As it had been and would be.

Are we lost, or are we found at last? On earth we strive for our various needs, because so goes the fundamental law of man. Aloft, at least for a little while, the needs disappear. Likewise the striving. In the thoughts of man aloft, food and evil become mixed and sometimes reversed. This is the open door to wisdom. Aloft, the earth is ancient and man is young, regardless of his numbers, for there, aloft he may reaffirm his suspicions that he may not be so very much. This is the gateway to humility.

The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It's the one you can't train for that kills you.

MaCleod, since you've flown the SeaBee a lot you'll understand when I say it was the only airplane I ever owned that you could put in a dive, loose a cylinder and stall out!

It doesn't look nearly as big as it did the first time I saw one. Mickey McGuire and I used to sit hour after hour in the cockpit of the one that American used for training, at the company school in Chicago, saying to each other, 'My God, do you think we'll ever learn to fly anything this big?'

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.