What grit and determination do

Let me share with you a love story about a neuroscientist and a pilot.

So I met my partner David in May 2018, we kind of made it our official relationship start date 8th June 2018. I have to admit though that I was not sure about things, we had a substantial age gap (I am older), I was just starting treatment for leukeamia, he had just been accepted at flight school and was starting in September 2018.

When my soul saw his soul though, it gave a sigh of relief as we had found each other.

He started flight school, we continued our relationship. Firstly he had ground school in Southampton. That was tough. Six months of gruelling modules plus exams to pass before he got to the ‘fun’ bit which was actually flying.

He had a bit of time out after passing ground school and started actual flying in the September of 2019. This was around 5 months later than scheduled. For someone who likes things to be orderly and timely this was extremely hard for me ha ha.

Early January 2020 we got news. David would be flying out to New Zealand on the 15th January (coincidentally this is also my birthday) and was expected to be there until May 2020.

On the 13th January my children and I went to Bournemouth Airport to watch him do touch and go’s in his little single engine plane.

You can see him fly in the video below.

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On the 15th January I took him to Heathrow Airport to wave him off on his big adventure where he would come back with his license to fly passengers on commercial aircraft.

Little did I know that when I waved good bye, because of the absolute nightmare of New Zealand restrictions that this was the last time I would hug him, kiss him, touch him for 9 months.

That time was hell.

We both at various times felt like it was the end of the world and we would never see each other in the same hemisphere again. We had virtual dates where at least one of us would be toasting the other at 7AM in the morning, whilst the other was in the evening.

We had the hardship of dealing with things that did not make sense, albeit on the opposite side of the world to each other.

He passed his exams.

He had a license.

He came home.

We had a reunion at Heathrow. Due to Covid there were people present who did not want me to make it a Love Actually encounter. I ignored them. Why would anyone want to be a killjoy on love?

He was home for around 2 months before he had to go off again.

This time because of bloody Brexit he had to go to Ireland to finish off his training.

Ireland was in the middle of its harshest lockdown.

We both found Ireland tough, but David more so as most of the Irish he encountered had serious depression becuase of social isolation.

He was there for 3.5 months.

He came home mid April 2021 and then he was off to Crawley Mid May to do his final bit of training which was learning how to be part of a multi-crew team.

His training was finished July 2021. I could not believe it.

We were both exhausted. The Pandemic and all it had contained had drained us both.

Aviation was still in crisis.

And yet.

Ryanair were recruiting.

He passed intial assessments in August 2021 and I dropped him at yet another airport this time on his birthday 1st September so he could attend a face to face interview and assessment at Ryanair HQ in Dublin

He had his interview on the 2nd.

He found out on the 3rd September he had been given his first first officer’s job flying for Ryanair and was commencing his type rating training towards the end of the month.

He flew a boeing 737 for the first time in December 2021 and started flying passengers in February 2022.

He has flown from Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester airports and now can be sent to Belfast and Stanstead as part of his duties.

Being a pilot is not like Catch me if you can. There is not much glamour, fast and loose living these days.

However.

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I cannot explain how I felt watching him land at Bournemouth Airport on the 11th June 2023. It was the most AWESOME, overwhelming feeling I have ever had. You can hear in the video, the excitement from children, who used to be my children and now are our children, plus the fact that I have to take deep breaths as I am so overcome with awe.

Whilst David was away, I had continued livng with acute myeloid leukemia, had chronic and pernicious anaemia that needed treatment, developed a nervous system that thought blacking out was the answer to all things stressful plus battled every single covid zealot that I came across as well as building my work to create a better (and kinder) world.

It was really tough. So tought that I am still recovering from it.

But I can honestly say that watching him land that plane and then take off brought it all home what grit, determination and passion from both of us had achieved.

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We watched him take off, with all his passengers safely sat behind him, and I wonder if they at any time thought of the pilots flying that plane and how they had got to be in command of that flight.

I suppose not, as I am not sure I did before being with a firstly aspiring trainee pilot, then a trainee pilot, then a cadet pilot and now a pilot with over 1000 hours under his belt.

I am so proud of David, but I am also proud of my children and I, as achieving anything is not a sole endeavour.

We need a good team behind us and rooting for us whenever we aim for the stars, or the skies.

This is the point of this post.

If we want things, really want to acheive things, it is not easy. The road is never smooth, it always has bumps and at that time we have to really remember why we are doing something.

David had to keep falling in love with flying.

I had to keep remembering why I had fell in love with him.

It was hard but look at those videos, from a tiny plane to a 737.

I will keep watching to remind me of why we do what we do.

My children on the drive home asked if we could celebrate what we had seen. That is a marvellous idea. So celebrate we will. It is always good to reinforce positive actions within our brain, then we will continue to keep going, persevere and get stuff done.

For those of you interested in flying and/or being a pilot then watch out for season three of the podcast where I interview David and we talk about how the character virtue of bravery is essential for flying.

I am in awe of what he has achieved.

It truly is a demonstration of grit, determination and perseverance.

We celebrated our 5th year anniversary on the 8th June 2023. We survived becoming a pilot. Let us now start to thrive with the knowledge that it will never be as hard as 2020-2021.

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
― Leonardo da Vinci