PLANE TALK - JIM DAVIS
NO MUSIC
FOR ME, THANKYOU Next time you are eating your favourite choccie while reading a good book, try see if you can enjoy both at exactly the same moment. It doesn’t really work, does it? IN FACT, I AM TOLD by people who seem to know, that one can’t fully enjoy good food and good music simultaneously. Only one can have your undivided attention at a time. The word undivided pretty much clinches it. What’s all this got to do with flying? Well, I was browsing through my favourite on-line aviation chat site the other day when I came across a discussion on what was the best way to listen to music while flying. That’s not a difficult question, you buy an airline ticket and use the best whiz-bang ear thingies you can afford.
drag myself into the current century, for which I failed to thank them. But I am still on a roll, and I will tell you why in a moment, because you – dear reader – as they used to say, have two advantages, you are more intelligent than the mob I was dealing with, and you can’t answer back.
I don’ t want to be ins ulate d f r om f l y ing
But no, that’s not the answer the punters were looking for. It seems they were keen to be PIC of a 50 year old 210, Bonnie, or Boere Boeing, with a wandering autopilot, while giving their full attention to Beethoven. Hmmm not for me. This feels so wrong, on so many levels, yet when I expressed this opinion on the forum I was shouted down by pretty much everyone. Most of my detractors thought it was an age thing, and rather rudely offered advice on how to
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So here are my thoughts on the matter, and once you have bought into my argument, I will tell you a story which I think pretty much clinches it.
Don’t get me wrong, a swarthy character with a black bow-tie and a violin can do much to ginger up a romantic dinner and a boom-box thumping out 60s music will enhance your Harley ride along route 66. It’s just that we are not wired to give our full attention to two things at once. Sampling a great wine doesn’t go with watching a lion and a buffalo settling a dispute, in the same way that savouring a Havana cigar doesn’t go with steeplechasing. Sure, if you are wallowing across the Karoo in
