Albatross [The Coolest Airplane in the Skies]

I’m not a pilot. I have no desire even to be a pilot. Sure, there was a time, back in the days when the movie Top Gun was still fresh in everyone’s mind, that I thought being a pilot would be pretty neat. That was before I joined the Navy and came to realize how much monotony is involved in flying. Yes, there’s scenery, there’s the euphoric sensation of leaving the Earth, of breaking the bonds of gravity and soaring into the heavens. Sure, there’s that. But there’s also the ever-present drone of the engines, a constant reminder that these are wings of steel which require massive amounts of thrust–just as a brick would–to keep the thing in the air. An airplane environment in the air is something completely alien to nature. It’s a world in itself in many ways. And when I’m flying I often have the sensation that I’m not entirely attached to humanity any more.

In many ways it’s like you’re riding in a delicately contained thunderstorm, or a tornado. And the realization that it could all go horribly wrong in an instant is at once a thrill as well as something akin to a death knell. But really the most disconcerting part of it to me is the sensation of the alien dimension, and the understanding that, until we land, we are entirely separated from our people, in many ways dead already. Needless to say at this point, I imagine, but thundering about at thirty thousand feet and eight hundred knots is not an entirely thrilling sensation to me. It’s boredom times separation anxiety times paranoia. I don’t have a fear of flying, I just really, really despise it.

I suppose, as with many things, that I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was me in the cockpit. I don’t like riding motorcycles when I’m not driving, nor cars. Maybe that’s a control issue, and I’m willing to own that, but for me, I can only be really comfortable if I know that I am the one whose hands are handling my fate. So, it’s not like I haven’t thought about being a pilot, I just can’t for the life of me imagine it being anything I would enjoy. After takeoff and before landing, you simply point the thing in the direction you need to go, level out your altitude, and then wait for the countless hours until you finally begin your descent. It just doesn’t sound fun to me at all.

But if I were a pilot, I can tell you unequivocally that I would be a pilot of a seaplane. A plane that would hug the Earth, not work as best it can to separate from it. A plane that could splash through cool blue Caribbean waters as easily as it posts up on the tarmac. And, for my money, there are few other planes that I would care to command as the Grumman Albatross. Part of the reason for that is because Jimmy Buffett immortalized the aircraft in his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty–a decent book at best, but made wondrous by the characterization of his adventures aboard the Hemisphere Dancer. But the biggest part of the reason is because the Albatross is one of those throwback planes, built in the ’50s it hearkens to the golden age of many things. It’s big enough to haul cargo, or you can dress it out to better resemble an RV. It makes me think that flying might not be entirely boring after all.

The Grumman Albatross is one of the most remarkable aircraft ever built, with beautiful, boat-like lines that any 18th century Post Captain of the Royal Navy would have fallen instantly in love with. I could drop her in a lake or on the sea, I could become a pirate and haul coffee, tobacco and rum to the Keys from Cuba. I could be a bush pilot in Alaska, landing hunting parties deep in the interior of the arctic wild on placid, icy, unspoiled lakes shimmering in the midnight sun. I could see Africa and India, Bangladesh and Bora Bora. I could wear khakis and a leather flight jacket and people would understand that I had been to the edge and back and was returning to the edge in a moment. I would know many ancient languages and could communicate with the bush people of the various exotic locations I would visit. I would be an adventurer of Earth. I would fly fish the Big Blackfoot in northern Montana, alone, utterly connected with the Earth in ways I have never experienced. The Albatross makes me think that flying would be uncannily cool, and if I ever finally strike it rich, you may not be surprised to find that I have purchased one and am searching the South Pacific for a remote desert island where I can disappear for a few years.