FLYING BY THE SEAT OF OUR PANTS

I fly by the seat of my pants. Literally.

I love to fly old World War II fighter planes, and to perform aeronautic “combat” maneuvers. I’m not the most experienced pilot. So, sometimes I find myself…flying by the seat of my pants.

Just about everyone in the public relations profession, in this brave new world, finds him/herself flying by the seat of their pants far more often than they’d like. In fact, there are a number of parallels…


The engine jumps to life, 600 ancient horses raring to go. I check the harnesses that feel like a ton on my torso, and I check the ripcord on my parachute.

I’m sitting in a sixty-four-year-old fighter plane from World War II, an AT-6, nicknamed “The Texan” by the cocky young pilots who flew her in combat. The “dashboard” is wood, and the cockpit instruments look like they’re out of a Humphrey Bogart movie. And I’m going to do some stunts, in tandem with Dennis Van Swol, the vastly-more experienced pilot who’s sitting behind me.

As we turn onto the runway, Dennis and I make our final check.

“Mixture is rich,” my headphones cackle as we converse back and forth. “Fuel-air ratio is good. Flaps are set. Pressure looks good...”

“The Texan departing on 8 right,” I call out to other air traffic on the radio. I open up the throttle and we gather speed. The nose is so high in these old planes that you can’t really see the runway. So, in effect, we take off and land by “touch.”

In a moment the ground is falling away, and the big yellow nose with the whirling propeller is pushing us up into a sea of blue. I pull up the landing gear.

As we climb, we begin dipping toward the right and then the left; the view becomes incredible. We head up toward puffy white clouds, and the ride turns bumpy.

“Now we’re going to do a few combat maneuvers,” Dennis says, “so you can get a feel for the aircraft.” With that he goes into a steep climb, and then a dive, and I try to imagine how it must have felt doing that with a Japanese Zero or German Messerschmitt trying to shoot you out of the sky. Then he turns the aircraft on its side, and we rip through the South Florida sky at a 180-degree angle.

Our headphones cackle with communications from all sorts of aircraft; North Palm Beach County Airport has no tower, so it’s up to the pilots to stay in touch with each other. Then we’re above the clouds, and suddenly it’s smooth.

“Now let’s do a roll,” he says. (A roll is a sideways somersault.)

Suddenly sky becomes land and land becomes sky, and clouds flash by as if on rollerblades. My head is below my body, and my hands are holding onto the balky control stick…from below it. We’re completely upside-down. Then we roll over to right ourselves.

Now it’s my turn to solo.

I hit the pedal on the extreme right of the wooden floor, forcing the nose down to gather up more speed. The ground seems to fly up toward me. Then I shove her into a climb. With the headphones cackling with Dennis’ voice and other traffic in the area, I grab the stick and pull it towards the right. And there we go…hurtling over the side at two hundred miles an hour. Again my head is suddenly under the rest of my body, with clouds flying by - below me.

I have to fight the stick a bit, as it’s difficult to hold her steady. Suddenly we’re rightside-up again. I ease up on the stick.

A minute later, I decide it’s time for a loop (backwards somersault).

I turn the nose down to pick up some speed. Then I yank it back up and climb straight up. This, by far, is the beginning of the most thrilling moment of the entire flight. A steep climb is murder on the body, and even more murderous on your mind. Normally, in an airplane, your fixed points are the land below you and the sky above and around you. Even though you’re up in the air, there’s a natural order of things, some physiological steering points. But when you’re in a steep climb, suddenly the land is gone, and you’re totally disoriented. Instead of a balance between land and sky, you’re heading straight up into an endless blue vacuum, with no horizon, no beginning, and no end.

I pull the stick toward me, and the old engine whines loudly. The ground disappears as we climb. Then I begin to flip her over, backwards. I feel my body pinned back against my seat, and my head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds (actually, in pilot-speak, I’m experiencing pressure of three “G’s). For a moment, I’m totally disoriented; I’ve lost any “compass point” in the sky or the land. I have no clear idea as to what’s “up” and what’s “down.” I literally cannot hold my head up, because of the pressure. I’m having trouble keeping my eyelids open. Upside-down images of blue and green and white are whooshing past me.

“Yee haw!” I shout out into the headphones, probably way too loudly for poor Dennis.

At that moment, it’s almost a test. You find yourself fighting for control…of the aircraft as well as yourself. And if you don’t remain calm, you’ll become ever more disoriented.

I hold her steady, fighting to keep the stick where it is. Finally, I see the ground floating up toward my face, and I begin to level her off.

“Want to try it again?” he asks.

“Yee haw!” I respond.

Again I point the nose down into a dive to get up some speed, and then pull back on the stick as I struggle to keep my eyes open from the pressure. Again we shoot up into a blue vacuum. Again we start rolling backwards and over our heads. And again I am upside-down, with colors and shapes and textures whooshing by underneath me, with the engines straining and the cockpit shaking. It almost seems like too much for the human brain to handle at once.

But when the land rolls back into view below us as we complete our circle, the feeling is one of incredible exhilaration.

As our radio cackles with transmissions from other aircraft in the area, Dennis says that it’s time to begin our descent. We go into a sideways roll – 180 degrees – and, as we pass through a cloud bank, we see a rainbow. I turn the controls back over to Dennis so I can look at it. We descend rapidly.

“North County Texan on its approach to 8 right,” I tell nearby air traffic.

We hit the runway. And as we slow down, I think of the pilot, sixty-four years ago, who sat in the seat where I’m sitting now.

So…how does this story relate to public relations? Well, the simplistic answer would be that we’re all, now, flying by the seat of our pants. But I think there are more practical correlations, as well…

* Always wear a parachute. And always check the ripcord. In PR terms, be prepared.
Make sure you have what you need in case of an emergency. And rehearse ahead of
time, in your mind, what you’ll do in case of emergency.

* If the ride’s a little bumpy, find a different altitude…think about what you can
do to make it smoother.

* Stay informed about the surrounding “traffic.” About your clients’ industries.
About their “flight plans. About their internal structures.

* Even when you feel like you’re flying upside-down, and things are whirling past
you at the speed of light, stay calm. And think clearly about your next step.

* Don’t be afraid to do loops and rolls…to experiment.

* When you lose your orientation – your “compass points” - don’t panic. Just find
some new ones.

* Sometimes things are not always obvious. So practice the art of taking off and
landing “by touch.”

* Don’t panic at the thought of flying by the seat of your pants. In our profession,
it’s becoming the norm.

And lastly, perhaps, when everyone around you seems to be losing their heads…shout out “Yee haw!” It’s going to be a very interesting ride.

Steve Winston
President, WINSTON COMMUNICATIONS
(954) 575-4089
steve@winstoncommunications.com
www.winstoncommunications.com