The Centerline

There is a joke, Why Don't pilots land on the center line? , because they can't. Can I land on the centerline? Depends. When I practice landings I put most of them on the line. In reality It depends on the runway. Today at Bremerton & later at BFI I allowed the plane to drift off of center a bit. A bit more at Bremerton, where I floated a bit due to my unfamiliarity with the flap switch, & I retracted them.. It was still a fine landing but off the line a ways. Yet at Oak Harbor, Wes Lupin field, to be off the centerline is to be in the grass. Even on the down sloping runway it remained steadfastly on the centerline.Maybe it's greed, if you give me 150' of runway , I want to use all of it. If I only get 20', I use what is available. I have heard the argument that one should always practice centerline landings. And the argument can be quite persuasive. I don't relax my standards for the vertical component of the landing, but if I have the room I will easily allow the horizontal part to wander. The question I posed was "CAN" I land on the centerline? The Answer is yes, I can.. Do I land on centerlines? No , Not always, but I can when the pressure is on.

Zen of Flying

Zen, the spiritual one-ness. I had it on a bike. I spent countless hours roaring thru the woods (or on twisty roads), in the zone, the bike an extension of my being. No thought is given to shifting , application of throttle & brake. Balance and direction are instinctive. There is a rhythm, a flow, harmony in motion. In flying, it is the same. One builds zen a bit at a time, some achieve it faster than others, but all real pilots experience it. Zen is one of the things that drags us back into the air, time & time again. A good CFI will sense it in his student in each seceding take off & landing, in the flow of motion required to tame the unseen winds. After a while he is no longer repeating the instruction " Ball! center the ball" as you stomp right rudder and swing wildly in the opposite skid.When you solo you first demonstrate that it is indeed your own Zen that safely returns man & machine to the tarmac. It begins for me as I finish my final pre-takeoff checklist and roll onto the active runway. As my craft gathers speed I begin to sense the song it plays in my hands , feet & seat. No longer does an airspeed indicator determine the moment of flight, instead we are drawn into the ether by a force greater than any amount of horsepower, a moment when everything is in harmony. And flight is achieved.
Climb is only noted on panel, it's rate is a function of weight , power and air. Our muscles are commanded by zen to climb higher into the sky. Vx & Vy become innate feelings that are summoned forth at our whim. Zen brings us over the fence at a steady rate, duplicating the same speed over & over, the indicator only serving to provide visual proof that it is Zen that pilots the craft. No dial, no gauge, no computer can tell the pilot when it is time to kick the rudder and break the crab, the moment of the flare is signaled thru zen to the proper airfoils. And we know flight has ended.