AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2023 - 24

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT
Decisions we make
Consequences of making the wrong move
cut deep and linger
BY RICHARD MCSPADDEN / Senior Vice President, AOPA
Air Safety Institute / AOPA Foundation Legacy Society member
I LED THE U.S. AIR FORCE THUNDERBIRD PILOTS through a gap
between large sliding doors and into a cavernous, World War II-era
hangar. Natural light seeped in behind us and through high windows
along the side walls. Ahead, just out of the shadows, a woman stood
next to a glistening Thunderbird aircraft. She fidgeted slightly as
we approached, belying an otherwise elegant poise. Immediately,
we knew this was no ordinary FARKLE, a special VIP access we
granted to Friends And Relatives, Kin, and Likely Extensions to meet
the team and see a jet up close. She stood alone, no team member
escorting her, no family tagging along.
She moved down our sequential lineup, pausing with each of
us, searching our eyes as she shook our hands. We explained our
operations and described the impressive capabilities of the red,
white, and blue F-16 beside her, which she greeted with polite but
manufactured interest and a hint of impatience. She wasn't there
to see the airplane. We finished the talk and asked if she wanted to
step up and look in the cockpit. " No. " She knew time was limited.
She found insight into the minutiae of our personal
tastes far more interesting than anything we'd
explained about our operations or our airplanes.
She began to ask questions about us, and we broke our stiff
lineup and closed around her in a scraggly semi-circle to hear
clearly in the echoey hangar. Her questions were unusually
personal, but something about her demeanor kept them from
being inappropriate. She turned to me. " What kind of ice cream
do you like? " Vanilla. " The only choice for true ice cream lovers, "
I quipped. Her giggle struck me as delightfully incongruous with
her genteel carriage.
" What is your favorite color? "
" Any color as long as it's blue, " I cracked.
" Oh, you're kind of a jokester, then? "
It wasn't casual banter, she was intensely interested in my
answers. She found insight into the minutiae of our personal
tastes far more interesting than anything we'd explained about our
operations or our airplanes. She continued: What kind of music
did I like? What was my favorite movie? Did I have any hobbies?
24
AOPA PILOT / August 2023
Her eyes brightened when I mentioned spending time with my
children and that I had a 6-year-old daughter. " Oh! " She stepped
closer. " What kind of things do you do with her? "
" We play! " I answered. " After work, she'll often host me for
dinner in her toy kitchen. The dress code is specific. I can wear my
flight suit, but she insists I remove my boots, which I think she's
connected with me staying home. We also have epic pillow fights,
and I'm teaching her how to ride a bike. "
She smiled, closed her eyes, and inhaled. After a bit,
she looked up and said quietly, " Thank you. My dad was a
Thunderbird pilot. He was killed flying when I was very small. I
have memories of him, but they are faded. Mostly, I know him by
hearing stories from my mother and others who knew him and
from leafing through pictures in old scrapbooks. I know he loved
flying and loved being part of this team. I can, on rare occasions,
conjure up his smell and remember the coarseness of his flight
suit. I never got to grow up with him, " she said. " So I never really
got to know him, and know what he was like, what he liked. He
probably had a lot in common with you, so I think that by getting
to know you and details about what you like and things you do,
I get to know him just a little bit better. "
We embraced. She slumped, lost the battle to contain her tears
and stopped fighting. She was not, in that moment, a professional
woman, a wife, a mom, an adult. She was just a girl, hugging her
father-or the closest proxy she could get to her father-whom she
had missed so deeply for so long. Physical amputees sometimes
report feeling pain in their missing limbs. Her pain emerged from
her missing father-daughter relationship, amputated by his crash.
When a pilot perishes in an aircraft accident, suddenly-in an
instant-they're gone. They blast a hole in the lives of spouses,
children, grandchildren, and close friends that can never be filled
by anyone else. The mourners learn to cope with the loss, but they
never get over it.
Our lives are just one of many
influenced by the decisions we
make in the cockpit, even when
we fly solo.
richard.mcspadden@aopa.org
SpadMcSpadden
PropBlast
RICHARD MCSPADDEN
led more than 100
airshow performances for
the USAF Thunderbirds,
flying the #1 aircraft.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2023

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