How it began

Before becoming a Church leader, I was a Chaplain in the RAF, before that a Navigator in the RAF. Before that I was, briefly, a pilot. Before being alowed anywhere near the jets we were to fly, we had to undergo ground training which included avaiation medicine.

One of the important aspects of this was how to recognise disorientation in the air.

You see, years ago, one of the most common ways for a young pilot to die was to get into cloud and end up, upside down. Because the process of getting upside down was not noticed by our young pilot, he was convinced that he must be the right way up. Sadly aircraft wings aren’t meant to operate the wrong way up, so the aircraft would begin to descend. Being a clever young pilot the chap would notice his altimeter reading decreasing so he would put on more power and pull the stick back. But, because he was upside down the correction had the opposite to desired affect. The aircraft would descend even more quickly. Therefore the pilot would put on more power and pull back harder until ….. Another baby pilot got planted in cumulo-granite.

We were told in our training that the only safe way to deal with flying into cloud was to get on instruments. In other words, to ignore our senses and to look at the instruments, in particular the artificial horizon, which clearly showed the aircrafts actual attitude.

This story has been told and retold by me many times because it’s a good demonstration of how we humans live.

You see, ever since you were born you have been flying the wrong way up. Everything that you have learned to get yourself out of tricky situations seems to put you in even trickier ones! Our best wisdom, our greatest discernment only seems to end up with us crashing time and time again.

So, at Jubilee Church in Croydon, were trying to learn what it means for us to fly the right way up.

I’ll try to blog some thoughts from time to time on things we are learning about living the right way up.

For now, happy flying!!