Remember

It is Remembrance Day once again, and I would like to write about something that I find fascinating; aviation. Ever since I was a young boy I have had an interest in airplanes, mainly because my father was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. After he introduced me to his passion for airplanes, it was not difficult for me to also become passionate about the UnTHINKable objects in the sky that defy gravity.

Imagine the year is 1941 and you are a 21 year old man. You have never seen a television or a computer. It is likely you have never seen death, either. You have not been desensitized to death and war like most of us are today. You have just completed one or two years of flight training in a machine that could only be seen in flight magazines for enthusiasts, or falling from the skies over the North Atlantic ocean.

So now you find yourself taking off from a wet, muddy runway in Britain. It's foggy and cold. You have a radio that might not work, and a compass. You're sitting in a cockpit laden with British electronics that are not known for their quality or resilience to moisture. You are quite aware of the fact that a lot of fires killed young aviators and experienced aviators alike, usually as a result of moisture, wiring, or some other engineering error. All of these things would have been in the back of your mind as your aircraft began to lurch forward. Your throttle is not digital. Everything is operated by touch and feel. Some younger pilots would take longer than others to acquire a decent feel for their craft. Your chances of living a long life were not great either. The enemy was flying better machines at the time and in most cases, in better numbers. Nevertheless, people volunteered. They did so because they felt it was the right thing to do for their country and their loved ones. In most cases, pilots in the early years were a wild and rare bunch who were fascinated with the idea of unproven machines and technology that did not yet inspire confidence in the greater populous. 

The vibration, the smell of oil and the deafening sound from your Rolls Royce engine would be enough to strike fear into the hearts of most people today. But for pilots who flew planes like the British Spitfire, fear was replaced with a blend of courage and insanity, held together by training and discipline. As one of these pilots, you were taking to the skies with confidence in yourself and those around you as. 

On a cold cloudy day, navigation would be incredibly difficult. You start by relying on your training and your wing men, then hope for the best. You were almost always alone in the skies, with only the mechanical orchestra of moving parts in your plane to keep you company. 

You had probably never experienced "g" forces before, either.  "g" forces make you feel like you are made of cement. All your blood rushes to your head and turns into glue. You lose your sight and have to force your lungs to breath. These forces are caused by performing aerial maneuvers while trying to avoid being shot, or while you were placing yourself in a position to shoot.

Can you imagine what it was like to have hot molten rounds flying across your cockpit, or maybe even see some of them piercing and damaging your plane? The more damage your plane takes, the more difficult it is to control. And of course in some cases you might have to jump out of a burning plane. Imagine reaching up to the handle to release the glass cockpit cap, ejecting yourself out into the elements. You are then torn from your seat only to find yourself in a struggle to avoid being cut in half by the tail of your aircraft. 

If you somehow managed to avoid getting shot down, the effort and mental stamina required to deal with the "g" forces while sighting-up an enemy for the kill could cause you to crash into mountains, buildings, other planes, or even the ground. If at this point you still haven't died, you have to make sure your rounds leave the barrels of your guns to hit their target, which is nearly impossible because the enemy pilot is violently slicing the air with his wings in order to avoid you as well. The mental and physical requirements for fighter pilots are staggering and unthinkable.

If you were lucky and skillful enough to survive a battle, you still had to find your way back home while minding your fuel, other gauges and the ever existing threat of more enemy attacks. It was all in a day's work for the fighter pilots of WWII.

Have you ever heard the roar of a Rolls Royce Merlin aircraft engine? Have you ever seen a Spitfire take to the skies? If not, I urge you to look it up. The internet is a wonderful way to experience the thrill of flight and the machines that carry us to the skies. These machines are a beautiful part of history and originally born out of a peaceful purpose; to give us the freedom of flight. Aircraft has evolved into mechanical metallic artwork, perfected by engineering. The aircraft of the WWII era had smooth lines and soul which cannot be found in many machines of the time. However, this technology came at a cost; countless hours of manual labor, calculations and testing. In some cases , it also came at the cost of human lives. If the cost was so high, why did people continue to push the boundaries of flight? The answer is easy. People wanted to create unique and beautiful flying machines that would ultimately soar through the skies and push the human body to limits yet unseen.

Take the time to watch a video, read a biography and enjoy the history of aircraft. Try to understand and appreciate what they have given to us. In addition, on this November 11th, I feel it is important to remember that real men and woman did the UnTHINKable all those years ago, so that we can enjoy the liberties and freedoms which we have today. 

The Rolls Royce "Merlin" - Aircraft Engine 

General Facts

12 Cylinders

Production from 1933 to 1946 

Contribution to Flight Technology: 

Improved fuel consumption.

Use of the Supercharger for increased speed.

The use of inter-coolers for a more stable engine.

The vast improvement of aerial carburetors.

Horse Power: Ranging from 700Hp in the early days up to about 2000Hp in the Merlin 131 series. 

Featured Aircraft: Spitfire, Hurricane, Mosquito and early Mustangs.

My Battle with Creativity

My Battle with Creativity

I would like to begin by telling you that I am in no way a professional writer. In fact I am quite amateurish at that. I decided to write this while sitting on the toilet no less. This a sort of account , is my quest to express my ever expanding creative mindset. Always adrift in motionless moments within my mind, trying to fit them together as if they were piece of my own jigsaw reality. A puzzle not yet complete as I suspect it is a metaphor for my life. But chiefly, and at the heart of my tale is one of struggle. The time period is my life and I am its battlefield, on which I wage war within myself to find just what it is I am meant to do with my creative nature.

The battle began when I was sitting in our local Recreation Centre watching my best friend play pool. We were listening to Metallica at the time and I remember being severely influenced by music. By this time in my life the seeds of musicianship had already been planted and I was playing along to my favorites bagging pillows with my drumsticks. Not much went on at the Recreation Centre. We listened to heavy music and played pool. This was routine for two summers but something was about to happen. . The hours of Metallica and Pool blossomed into my best friend serenading the ladies with his tab by the minute guitar skills. I felt like an idiot standing there with only two drum sticks in my pocket, watching my friend play to the amazement of our female counterparts. I was smart enough to know that any attempt at displaying a musical accompaniment with only two pieces of wood... would look ridiculous. The gears were in motion, and so began the conflict. It was time to learn how to play the guitar.

When I mastered the guitar to my satisfaction it began to solidify the creativity inside of me. For the first time in my life I could call myself an artist of sorts. The guitar I wielded became my first real weapon. Though it was a damaged old Yamaha, it bore the characteristics of a family sword handed down, bearing the scars of conflict. It allowed me to channel emotions that I could not really express or control before my new-found effective, creative outlet came to be. While I was honing my skills and my need for spontaneous creation most of my friends were reading through tab books learning how to play other peoples songs. It was almost early gained fame for some of those guys but I wanted to use my ever growing arsenal of riffs and runs for a greater purpose. Five years of diligent practice were dedicated to this purpose.

Unfortunately, But my struggle to find a proper device of creative delivery continued because as music and the creation of, became a stale game.

After those years of musical driven internal combustion, I found myself adrift in my mind. It seemed that my art became internal self distraction. I became numb having few ways to better interpret my creative desires. I never really was effective just sitting around thinking all the time. My walls adorned with articulate “Mind Paintings” rooted in the reality offered by depression.

Music had faded from my life but my creative impulses continued to manifest themselves in the form of casual conversation and sporadic rage. I was no longer waging the same kind of war. There was something very personal about everything that was happening around me. I became attached to moments as if they were the canvas upon which I thrust every emotion . My mind morphed into a strategic center for random inspiration, rather than brutal power cord driven cannon fire. The conflict is still within, but no longer limited to my potential as I turn my sights to the UnTHINKable. Now I find myself sitting down and writing just what it is I was thinking when I was sitting on the porcelain throne.

And this is where is rest my condition. It is my first attempt at sharing with you an important part of my struggle to find what it is I am meant to do with existence. To find something I can bring with me to battle every-day when I face the challenges of my imagination. Something beyond what I think of writing while in the bathroom. This is only but a small offering and I would like to bring you more from time to time, as I test my feel, and developing need to write, to tell, and to share something with all of you.

Vice

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UnThinkable Art