Yaw String

Let’s not start with an anecdote.
Let’s just strap you in the cockpit,
Hand you a dire scenario,
And hit you with a hail of facts.

Say you’re cruising at altitude,
And everything is going fine.
Then all your instruments go dark
Just as you glide into fog.

Ice begins to pelt your windows.
Here you are, now what are the facts?
Spatial disorientation
And loss of situational

Awareness. Your ground-up senses
Are at a loss for data
And wildly misinterpreting
What sensory inputs they have.

Your visual, vestibular,
And seat of the pants feel all spin
On contradictory headings.
Unless the instruments come back

To let you know what’s up, you’ll crash,
Probably after you’ve blacked out,
No longer aware of caring,
Your only mercy at the end.

September, 1929,
Doolittle made the first flight,
From takeoff to landing, solo,
Solely by means of instruments.

Think of the madness and the trust,
To sit in a hooded cockpit
Believing only the machines.
Picturing it makes you shudder.

But he did it. It’s illegal
Now to fly any other way
Under most conditions, given
Human physical frailty.

Meanwhile you’re flying the planet
With senses you’re too smart to trust
To land a single-engine plane,
Terrified of the machine minds

You dread taking over your world.
You close your eyes as you’re screaming,
Unable to control your roll,
Nosediving inside your own flames.