High Flight

I've decided that I'm going to make one last post about my dad, funerals, etc. While I'm sure that most people reading this blog are interested in developments around this subject, I also concede that this blog could get a bit morbid if I keep posting about my dad's crash, NTSB investigations, plane wreckage, crying old men, widows, etc. So, I'm going to make this the last post on these subjects. With that in mind, I'm going to post t"High Flight", a classic poem that brings tears to the eyes of old pilots. I've seen that firsthand when one of my dad's flying buddies read it aloud at his memorial. This was originally written by a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot during World War Two.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-J.G. Magee, RCAF, 1941

I spent this morning with the NTSB investigators at an airplane salvage yard in maple valley. They're still working out the details, but there is a preliminary report here. I got some photos of the wreckage, it's pretty gnarley. Everything was bent up from the impact and then burned really badly. I'll post pictures of that later. Finally, a fellow pilot snapped this photo of my dad taking off from Arlington airport on what would be his last flight.

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