Wheels up!

A Hornet leaves Earth
London, ON
September 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It may not seem apparent, but this is the most dangerous moment of any flight.

You've just unstuck from the runway, your wings tasting lift for the first time, the engines clawing out as much speed and altitude as possible. If something happens here, there's little room below you to recover, little runway ahead to land once more. Your options are limited.

Of course, this is a supersonic, twin-engined fighter plane with seemingly limitless power. Why not simply point the needle nose up, mash the afterburners and put it all behind you?

If only it could be that simple. Sadly, the laws of flight can be cruel: We've lost 20 Hornets since they first joined Canada's fleet 38 years ago.

But if you're going to be part of the global community, this is part of the cost of membership. Some may decry the need for machines like this in the first place. They're expressly designed for war. The money spent on them could be better spent elsewhere.

Valid points all. But this is an imperfect world, and our neighbors don't always have our best interests at heart.

Ask anyone who lived in London during the Battle of Britain if they would rather the government had spent the money allocated to Spitfire production on something else. This is how you deter aggression - or resist it when it comes knocking on your door. This is how you maintain sovereignty. This is how you keep the forces of darkness at bay.

Fast-forward back to today, and I doubt the dictators in our modern neighborhood would waste much time shifting their military strategies if we decided to get out of the fighter plane business altogether.

So let's call the need to arm ourselves not optimal, but necessary. Which makes me thankful for folks like this pilot, willing to brave basic physics and risk leaving the planet behind so the rest of us can sleep soundly at night.

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