The latest edition of the AOPA Flight Training magazine arrived in the mail today. I always enjoy reading it, though I inevitably get to the section where someone writes about a horrific experience they had flying and how they learned a lesson.

It’s great to learn lessons.

I like learning lessons from books, because the forces of gravity exert themselves much less fearfully while reading a book than when 3500 AGL. Usually, by the time I’m finished with the magazine, I can only think of crashes.

My gosh, airplanes are death traps! I think, making note of the “promote the joys of aviation” advertisements sprinkled between the “and I almost crashed in the fog in the mountains of Idaho but I learned a valuable lesson” articles.

It doesn’t help that my friend seems to find a way to tie in random bits of conversation with crashes. For example, while looking at an atlas, I learned the location of several horrible plane crashes.

It would have been nice to just make note of national parks and be done with it.

In a way, a number of my blog posts pertaining to flying could find their way into the magazine on a sort of amateur level. Probably the closest I’ve had to a “teachable oops” was the “oh shit the flaps!” moment at the Carrington airport.

Well, I’ll read the magazine.

I’ll regret it, but I’ll read it.