The Gift of Flight – Part 1 - My great escape

The Gift of Flight – Part 1 – My Great escape - by P.K.Odendaal – 1 July 2012.

I went underground yesterday, and became a mole - and I carried the 'big pack' on my body. No, I did not join Al Qaeda, nor carried a car bomb, and I did not become a counterfeit spy. I carried a Life Pack whilst visiting a Coal Mine in the course of my work, at Arnot, a town I do not wish to live in, neither die in - a town now buried somewhere in my memory for making me infamous.

Whilst I looked at the coal, and the blackness, and the danger underground, I suddenly remembered the day I nearly lost my life on the surface very nearby - and in broad daylight - more precisely at its airfield.

The occasion was after my yearly flight test, when I returned the borrowed aircraft, a Cessna 182 RG, to its owner. On that day I had to do three serious flight tests, and I did, at that stage, not have a suitable  aircraft of my own, with which I could do the tests. So I asked a good friend of mine, Flip, a farmer just outside this town, whether I could borrow his aircraft for these tests.

And so, the day before this day of anguish, I took it to my hangar at our airfield in Witbank, to be ready to depart early the next morning to Lanseria for my skirmish with the Designed Examiner (DE).

That night I had this nightmare : I was flying a Cessna aircraft and came in for a landing. Just as I touched down, all the wheels collapsed and I landed on the belly of the aircraft. I woke up in anguish and sweat and fear and apprehension.

I argued by myself that the tests were working on my nerves, and that this was just a psychological manifestation of that fear and tribulation. However, when God warns me of impending danger, I normally go to war with the evil force which seeks to destroy my life - and so I joined battle with it in the Spirit and destroyed this evil force who wanted to end my life with an unwelcome intervention in God's plan for my life. What normally happens then, is that I only see the shadow of this.

Now I want you to understand conventional wisdom quite well. It says :

1.  God does not exist or he exists but does not care about us and is not interested in talking to us. He is too holy and we are too sinful, or He might be too busy … or … or

2.  God cannot show us anything or talk to us, and cannot warn us of impending danger.

3   God cannot save us from impending danger – we have to face it ourselves.

Now I want you to understand wisdom.

1.   An accident is not triggered where it is manifested. It is triggered when the conditions for that accident has been created, and then it only waits for a suitable time and place to be manifested.

2.  God knows these conditions, and sees when it will happen before it happens, as he is omniscient.

3.   When these conditions are right for the manifestation of the accident, God warns us of impending danger, giving us a chance to prevent it by whatever means are available to us, or by calling on Him to prevent it from endangering us.

I want you to know that there is no relationship between conventional wisdom and wisdom. The first is from man and the latter from God – and the wisdom of man is contrary to the wisdom of God.

I give you this example.

In aviation we all know that a small twin-engine aircraft cannot keep its altitude when one engine fails. When that happens, the aircraft loses altitude and will eventually do an unsolicited landing when that altitude runs out - most likely in a place where there are enough obstructions to break it apart. During that time we will be so busy trying to control the aircraft, that we will not notice that there are suitable terrain below us where we may make a fairly safe precautionary landing, if we still have control, over it. We will hope the second engine comes on again or that the remaining engine will pull us through to a suitable airfield nearby. We will crash the aircraft on unsuitable terrain not of our own choice. Therefore we have the saying : The second engine takes us to the scene of the accident. Where the accident happens is not where it was caused. It was caused when the one engine failed – or more importantly, some months ago when an aircraft mechanic did not notice a broken part or system or where he made a mistake in assembling the parts.

I learned this from an accident of one of my friends some years ago.

He was flying to the Okavango Delta in Botswana with a single engine aircraft. Before he started his journey, two unwelcome acquaintances or distant relatives asked him whether they could go along. The journey started quietly, but soon thereafter became loud when the quarrels started, and it all ended up in absolute silence when he crash landed his aircraft on some unsuitable air strip in the Okavango, after being distracted seriously, and irritated by these two passengers. He told me some time later, that this accident in fact happened when he told them that they could fly with him.

If we know this principle, we will be more on our guard as to what decisions we take. You can read my blog on Cause and Effect elsewhere. Every accident has a cause and is looking for a place to be manifested.

In my case the accident happened when they assembled the aircraft in the factory with an incorrect front wheel bearing assembly, and it was waiting to occur, with me as the victim.

I was not sure whether the night mare was due to my nerves or God speaking to me. I was to find out soon.

My friend, Flip, asked me to take the aircraft to a Lanseria workshop to check a small oil leak on the front wheel assembly in the front wheel well (where the wheel retracts into) as soon as I finish my tests. And this I did. So, while the mechanics were standing around the aircraft and one looking into the wheel well and assuring me all was well, God spoke to me, saying that I must kneel down and look into the wheel well - there was a problem there. I answered Him that I would look, but even if I did, I would not be able to see the fault, as I was not an expert in these things. I looked into the wheel well and saw no problem.

I got into the aircraft and started to put on my safety belts, when God spoke again. He said that I must tighten my seatbelts well. I tightened my waist belt, but found that there was no shoulder harness to really tighten me properly, so I was only half way fastened, but that had to do. And off I was to deliver Flip's aircraft to him.

His farm was only two kilometres from the Arnot airfield, so I made a shoot up over his farmhouse, to let him know to pick me up at the airfield. After the shoot up, I pulled the aircraft up to bleed the speed down quickly in order to lower the landing gear (wheels). After a few seconds I notice that I only have two green lights, meaning that the front wheel is not down and locked. Trouble!

My brain is in top gear sifting through all the possible causes, remedies, emergency drills, risks involved, solutions and so on. I speak to him on the ground and tell him of my calamity. He tells me that I must overfly the airfield at a very low altitude, so that he can see whether the front wheel is down. I do this a few times and he says the front wheel is down. I also recycled the gear a few times to see whether it will not lock, but it does not show three greens even after about five cycles. Flip tells me that he has had the problem a week before, but that nothing was wrong, as he landed safely – it might be an electric circuit or bulb that does not function properly. I also omitted to turn the landing gear down mechanically, a recommendation in such circumstances. So I did in fact fear, and the fear clouded my brain. I only later learned that it would also not have helped.

It is time to decide on a landing, and I consider the possibilities.

After I land on the two main back wheels, the front of the aircraft lower itself and will strike the asphalt runway just after the propeller hits it and is bent backwards, while it disturbs or bends the  engine mountings. The propeller and aluminium cowling will spout out sparks as the metal screeches on the tar. The fuel lines may be severed from the shock on the engine and airframe, and will spout out fuel in the vicinity of the sparks. The fuel will ignite and feed the fire back into the fuel tanks. The aircraft will burn out or explode viciously and spectacularly.

What can I do? I can go back to Lanseria and ask the Fire Brigade to flush the runway with foam, to inhibit the sparks. I foolishly leave the final decision to him – whether to land at the Arnot airfield with a possibility of a crash landing, or to return to Lanseria. He decides that I must land at Arnot – the wheels will be fine. I should have returned to Lanseria to minimise the risk, and the aircraft would also then be at a place where it can be fixed. That is fault number one, but it only becomes clear after the event, as hindsight is perfect vision.

Am I scared and do I fear? Nothing at all. I have to stay calm and I have to think and I have to fly the aircraft with all the skills I have. I know from experience that I can. One of my instructors once gave me this advice: I was doing a conversion onto a Cessna Caravan Jet Prop aircraft. This aircraft has a wire running through the engine compartment, and when a fire breaks out there, the fire alarm in the cockpit goes off. He asked me what I would do in such an emergency. I told him that I did not know. He told me that first I have to dirty my pants and get that part over and done with, as this was usual for pilots in such circumstances, so that I could then attend to the emergency 'unhindered'.

I make a very slow approach at minimum speed and realise that this better be a perfect landing. I land the aircraft on both back wheels simultaneously, as one should, and I do not even notice the exceptionally smooth landing. I only hear the wheels spinning up and feel them solidly underneath me. I keep the nose wheel up for as long as I can whilst there is still some lift left on the wings, but it dwindles quickly and the front wheel settles softly on the tar. It runs for a few seconds, and I relax – it was only a faulty electrical circuit after all.

And then all hell breaks loose. All of a sudden the front wheel folds into the front wheel well, and the propeller and lower engine cowling hit the tar. Sparks fly everywhere and I hang on my seat belt like in a dive bomber pointing steeply downwards. The screeching sound is like thunder in my ears. I wait for the fire, and it seems like ages going by before the aircrafts stops. The aircraft stops in only twelve metres – unbelievable. I loosen my seat belt, unlatch the door, jump and run for safety before the explosion.

Nothing happens. I just stand there about a hundred metres from the aircraft, not a hair on my head has been touched. I have only seen the shadow of this accident.

I want you to remember Conventional Wisdom. God could not have warned me in a dream. God could not have told me to look into the wheel well. God could not have told me to tighten my safety belts properly. God could not have stopped a fuel explosion. I could not have got out of the aircraft unscathed. I could not have lived.

But these unbelievable things happened to me.

I will never believe Conventional Wisdom. Conventional Wisdom is a science for fools. It tells you exactly what is going to happen, and if that does not happen, it tells you exactly why it did not. Much like weather forecasts. They may be right, but that would be purely by accident.

Philosophy - Part 11 - I am, therefore I think.

Philosophy – Part 11 – I am, therefore I think – by P.K.Odendaal – July 2012.

We ended our last part by realising that the philosophy of old was finally written off as a waste of time and words, because it was proven false time and time again. But, there was something else going on in the offspring of Philosophy, namely Science. The axioms which were being used to base Science on, was not being proved true or false, mainly because it was intuitively correct and generally accepted, without any scientific proof.

Some of the oldest axioms comes from Euclid (300 BC) in the form of postulates. His method consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms, and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these. He was the first to show how these propositions could fit into a comprehensive deductive and logical system. He was so successful with this that we still today believe his postulates to be true.

A parody on Marriage

A Parody on Marriage - By P.K.Odendaal - 21 May 2012.

Note added on 21 April 2015.

I do not want to upset you from the start, as it was only my intent to upset you at the end, but so exciting and depressing is this subject that I decided to upset you all the time as a marriage upsets many people most of the time or is that all people some of the time.

The fact is that a marriage requires each of us to compromise because we are not the same, we react quite differently and our interest are quite diverging. Therefore, if I compromise, I become a lesser version of myself and for most of us, specially those who are creative and innovative, a lesser version of ourselves will only make us unhappy. So, before we have even started, we are already on this slippery slope of a disconnect and conflict inside ourselves between what we are and what we want to be and the stark reality what we do not want to be and what we should be or are expected to be in the marriage.

End of note. 

No, love and marriage does not go together, like the now almost proverbial horse and carriage, although some of us are more inclined to put the carriage before the horse.

I normally enjoy writing satires, but marriage is just such a serious subject, that this has to be a parody, and I find myself in uncharted waters. However, what is said here, needs to be said, and it fell upon me to say it, albeit in a parodicidal way. You might not believe anything I tell you here, because it is as strange as fiction. It is about a serious thing called marriage and the ungrateful task of choosing the right marriage partner, for a marriage which is in any case a strange thing. However, if you listen carefully, you just might get some wisdom here which cries out in the streets.

Philosophy - The downfall of mankind - Part 10 - The Duality of Life and Paradoxes

Philosophy - Part 10 - The Duality of Life and Paradoxes- By P.K.Odendaal - 21 May 2012.

And now we have finally come to our long delayed analysis of Black and White in The Sunset Limited. Even here, as the dialogue goes, things are not so easy to follow, having an intrinsic uneasiness due to the duality of life, complicated further by the false theories of philosophers, now totally exposed by people like David Hume and Jean Paul Sartre. This whole piece of TSL is a symphony of errors drawn from these and other philosophers, yet we are unable to make a rational reply to their irrational theories.

Travel blog 2012-02 Death in Venice

Travel Blog 2012-02 - Death in Venice - by P.K.Odendaal - 5 June 2012

It is all over now ... and we knew all along the end it was in sight, for quite some time. But, even so, when it came, it was unexpectedly and most unwelcome and almost heartbreaking.

Yes, we have left our cruise ship today after twelve magnificent days at sea and in many different ports, and bade her farewell, having made some new acquaintances along the way. But what is more serious is that the highlight of our trip, or so we thought, turned out to be such a disappointment. Everybody knows Venice is beautiful and breathtaking, and on this fourth visit of us, I intended to make the visit even more spectacular by visiting all the beautiful cathedrals and churches of the city - a favourite pastime of mine.

Travel blog 2012-01 Rome is burning

Travel blog 2012 - Rome is burning - by P.K.Odendaal - 28 May 2012.

So it is back to my travel blogs as it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere again, and as always, my mind will take priority on this trip, whilst my body follows the fixed itinerary.

And the location of my body is on board ms Nieu Amsterdam, a drifting island somewhere in the Mediterranean. I find the state form of this island kingdom quite exotic. It is not capitalist, although I can see some strains of capitalism here and there. It is also not communistic, and any sign of socialism has been hidden carefully. I do not know whether this is on purpose. We have a dictator in charge of everything, and he does not care whether I have a say or not - he just won't listen to me or any popular vote on board - in fact here we have no voting rights at all. we call him the Captain, and a real dictator he is at that, but he sees to it that he keeps his word and gets us to the right destination on time, every time. And, come to think of it, he looks really well after us, and has told us that he only has our interests at heart and none of his own ... now that is an excellent good dictator .. you can take my word for it. I wish the whole world was filled with their kind. The food and lodging is better than any country I know of, and we are really free to do what we like ... I mean within bounds. Jumping overboard is not allowed and neither is staging boycotts or strikes.

Philosophy - Part 9 - We are the aliens

Philosophy - Part 9 - We are the aliens - 14 May 2012 - by P.K.Odendaal

I hear the steel drums sing their song
They're singing man you know you've got it wrong
I hear the voice of the yellow bird
Whispering to me this is quite absurd

Sure as bananas need the sun
We are the criminal guilty ones

From Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dream coat.

When I see the aliens in the computer games of young kids, and the things these aliens do, I come to the shocking realisation that what we are, we think them to be and project our violence onto them, whilst in reality we are the aliens, totally estranged from this world and its realities.

So neuroses has really gotten us in a big way. And when we see the way mankind destroys its own, how governments and banking systems are destroying the wealth of this world, leaving man poor and disenfranchised, it is easy to see that the whole world has become neurotic - even psychotic.

Philosophy - the downfall of mankind - Part 8 - The Forces of God

Philosophy Part 8 – The forces of God – by P.K.Odendaal – 1 May 2012

You should not doubt that, even whilst what I served you in the previous part, also started out as nothing, because God created everything from nothing. If we look at the accepted dogma of the creation of the earth, we find basically that the whole universe was founded and formed from nothing but Light and the Forces instituted by God.

What is a force? Nothing you will ever be able to see or measure or experience – therefore nothing in terms of the belief of our philosophers which we now leave with a sense of sadness for them, and a thankfulness for the prime position we now know we have inherited for free. Life and Love eternal.

How do we do know there are forces ? We look at behaviour like the philosophers did – and we only think they are forces, because they seem to disturb the normal state of rest of things or change their state of inertia. That is why we call them forces.

Philosophy Part 7 - Death and Hell in two easy steps

Philosophy Part 7 - Death and Hell in two easy steps – by P.K.Odendaal – 22 April 2012

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Black and White (from The Sunset Limited – in case you missed part 1) is waiting for us where we left them off – ready to end our story – White in the process of ending his life and going the way mankind has always chosen in the face of so many better choices. And the choice is really only between two extremes – Love leading to Life or Despair and Nihilism leading to Death. And we are so apt in choosing Death every time.

And that brings us then to the climax of this series of articles of mine – and of human excellence and human endeavour which is self destructive in the end. It is called more theoretically Scepticism and Nihilism – the first leading to the latter. Why do people who were once so successful, eventually chose the one way they should not – that of Nihilism. Why did Hitler drag a whole world and fifty five million people into destruction with himself after he was so successful in unifying a devastated nation. Why did Russia, via Stalin, go on a bout of self destruction after they were so successful in winning the Second World War against the Germans. Why did China chose the same destructive route with their Great leap Forward. Why do super successful celebrities end in drugs, rehabilitation and ultimately death and self destruction.

Philosophy - the downfall of mankind - Part 6 - Capitalism and Communism

Capitalism and Communism – by P.K.Odendaal – 14 April 2012

Maybe I am right, maybe I am wrong, but I get the impression that Capitalism and Democracy are two intertwined Government forms. They are thought to be bed-fellows and you can't have the one without the other. I also get the impression that it is Conventional Wisdom that Communism and Dictatorships go together.

Being very sceptic, weary and on my guard for Conventional Wisdom, I came to the conclusion that the Conventional Wisdom is wrong again – as it almost always is on profound issues. Therefore I have decided to set the record straight.

Capitalism is based on Capital, owned by Individuals and Companies, and managed by Individuals and Companies according to a set of principles which change from State to State, depending on the development stage and maturity of corruption in the specific State. The idea is that the State should not inhibit Capitalism or the way the Capitalists wish to manage their Capital. If the State is Democratic, the State will wish to control that Capital, taking the control thereof from the Capitalists. And this is the conflict and why Capitalism and Democracy are in fact two vehement enemies. To try and reconcile them in  one State is useless, having been proved so two thousand four hundred years by Athens and Plato.