“Pappy” Boyington’s definition of flying as “Hours of dull monotony, sprinkled with moments of stark terror” remains unsurpassed. Virtually no pilot puts in any time without collecting white knuckle “hangar stories” and I’m no exception. The path of our “leadership” and those vying for office reminds me of one incident in particular.

Taking off from Kernville airport one beautiful afternoon in a small Alon I owned, a real kiddy car to fly and a lot of fun, I pointed the nose of the bird toward Walker Pass. I was flying VFR with ceiling and visibility unlimited in the extraordinarily clean, clear desert air. Hanging a right at the junction, I would follow the 14 into Fox Field at Lancaster, a short but generally delightful and uneventful flight.

Making my turn south, I settled back to enjoy the scenery encompassing nearly the whole of the Mojave Desert and the feeling of three-dimensional freedom of movement that accompanies piloting an aircraft, big or small. Flying at 3,500 feet, which put me about 1,200 AGL in this location, some thirty miles from Fox I noted a small dark smudge at my altitude off in the distance. It was a cloudless day, and in any event a “dirty” cloud didn’t make any sense. But as I continued on, it became obvious that the small, dirty cloud was coming my way and fast!

It happened almost too quickly to register, but that dark smudge in the air was coming from the eight engines of a B-52 headed directly at me on a collision course! I barely had time to pull back sharply on the yoke, and watched in fascinated amazement and wonder as that huge bomber like some aerial Moby Dick glided beneath me! It was both spectacular and eerie at the same time to watch the behemoth pass under me so nearby. I could have landed my tiny bird on the wings of the thing!

No doubt the huge bomber’s crew was practicing low-level flight, but our closure rate had to be somewhere around 400 knots. I don’t believe the crew of that enormous bird ever saw me since the pilot never deviated from his course.

“Keep your head on a swivel” and “See and be seen” are both part of the “Bible” of flying. Had we collided, as though swatting a fly the results because of the closure speed might well have been disastrous for the huge bird and crew; not to mention yours truly.

As in driving, I had the “right of way,” I was at the proper altitude and the bomber pilot was not. This is of small comfort, whether driving or flying, when you are “dead right.” The homily is admittedly obvious, but our government seems intent on a collision course with the realities of world events, one of the most dangerous being the threat of Islam. But those in charge are too intent on the “mission” to keep their heads on a swivel. A collision with my little Alon could have brought down that B-52, but the threat of Islam is equally deadly to America and Western Civilization. It may only take a small bomb with horrific capability, an act of nuclear terrorism in America to set off a chain of events too horrible to contemplate!

It is excruciatingly obvious the refusal on the part of government to secure our borders is inviting a cataclysmic disaster for America. In this case a collision is unavoidable due to our “leadership” staying on a course inviting this disaster for America. Another destructive course for America is the fact when perverts are elected to office, sit as judges, are hired into the ranks of Child Protective Services and the schools, in any manner allowed access to children this cannot but invite predators to prey on children thereby proving we have a leadership set on the destruction of families and children.

Concerning all those striving to become rich and powerful leading to the wars of men resulting in the deaths of so many millions and arriving nowhere in the end Emerson wrote “The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to exact this immense sacrifice of men?” No one can think of the battles in which so many have died, battles like Normandy, the madness of a Hitler or Tojo without asking themselves the disquieting questions of why so many are sacrificed to the ends of so few in power? Where in nature do we find ends “so great and cogent” as to make sense of this continuing slaughter by the nations of the world?

While the story of Babylon in the last book of the Bible, that “great city” upon which the merchants of the world depend, is uncannily descriptive of America it remains whether we will ever have the kind of leadership that is not dedicated to the destruction of America, but rather will put the interests of our nation before anything else, before power and riches. Unless and until this happens America cannot offer hope to other nations but is on a collision course with the rest of the world.