“What good pilots consistently do is perfect their foundational skills. They practice — they live — on airmanship. It’s courtesy, consistency, and core competency.” Darren Pleasance, new President and CEO of AOPA, in Pursuit of Excellence, AOPA PILOT magazine March 2025.
Tag: perpetual pursuit
Armstrong’s Last Presentation
“Like that of Ulysses, each of our lives is a miniature Odyssey, going to new places, seeing new things, understanding new ideas, and each day penetrating the biggest unkown of all: tomorrow. For each of us it should be, and can be, an exciting voyage. Buen Viaje!” Neil Armstrong, 2011. The quote is from his submission to the 2014 book …
Come Fly with Me — Herb Alpert
“I play it just about every day of my life–not because I have to, but because it’s something that gives me pleasure. That’s what I tell kids when they ask what’s the secret to being successful in the music industry. If you’re not really passionate about what you’re doing or if you’re doing it because there are some benefits like …
How Much You Don’t Know
Beginners Mind met Perpetual Pursuit! Always learning. Sometimes embarrassingly large amounts of stuff I was blind about!
Judge Yourself
From the excellent 2019 book The Passion Paradox.
Robin Olds on Flying
Fighter pilot legend. Triple Ace. Multiple combat victories against Messerschmitts and MiGs. Married to a Hollywood actress. Son of a General, who became a General himself. College football star. Best Wing Commander in Vietnam. Hard-drinking mustached maverick, who eventually was Commandant of the Air Force Academy. Robin Olds had an amazing career. But let’s look here at some of his …
The Disciples of Flight Movie Review
At the end of 2019 I downloaded a new aviation documentary— and it’s gorgeous. Beautifully shot crisp HD images of general aviation flying paired with insightful interviews from a bunch of pilots, including Patty Wagstaff, Rod Machado and NASA’s Dr. Dismukes. You can download it from Disciples of Flight directly for $15, or use Amazon Prime Video. Well worth the …
Easy to Fly, Hard to Fly Well.
I’m back from vacation. A highlight was getting to fly a 1930’s Tiger Moth out of an airfield in England. That’s me in the front seat. Absolutely wonderful experience. The instructor said the Tiger Moth was the perfect trainer for all WWII RAF and Empire pilots as it was “easy to fly, hard to fly well”. Well, I certainly proved …
Olé Olé Olé!
An electrifying movie about the Rolling Stones recent South American tour has awesome concert footage, and some reflective thoughts from all the band members after 55+ years of working towards excellence and mastery: “At the start of a tour, it’s like being on a tightrope, that once you’ve set foot on it, that rope widens and becomes a bridge that …
The Impossible Climb
I was lucky enough to get an advance review copy of a new book coming out in March 2019: The Impossible Climb: A Personal History of Alex Honnolds’s Free Solo of El Capitan and a Climbing Life, by Mark Synnott. It’s pretty dang awesome. Highly recomended. Alex Honnold, the world’s greatest climber, went 3000 feet up shear mountain face, alone …