Fly the F-16 in the clouds

Of course I'll share the view. I don't take it for granted. But just know some of these are for me to reminisce and even to mourn. A member of the team told me recently - "Part of the journey is the end." and that's been on my mind. A reader might understand the feeling - It's like the last few pages of a book that changed your life. The stack of pages is dwindling and they aren't slipping from your right thumb anymore. Eventually you reach the last page that is maybe only half full and there's this rush to dwell on each word and every sentence because you know that even if you can somehow find a way back to this book, you only get one first time with it. I won't miss the flying because it never felt like that. That's too plain. I'm not even sure I will miss the physicality of flying the demo. I'll miss being able to express myself with a machine that never belonged to me but was my friend even when we were both tired. How I could find a mood or change a mood. How I could feel the airplane perform in relation to my mental state the same way cowboys talk about their time on a horse. How I could takeoff as one person and land somewhere far away as another or even silly things like how a grape celsius tastes and fizzes at a cabin altitude well above 10,000 feet. For three years and enough miles to take me around the fattest part of the earth several times over, this was my seat.