I like to fly direct. Takeoff, clear the obstacles, then turn to the heading. Hold that course through climb, cruise, and descent, brooking neither deviation nor detour. Such straight routes let me laugh at mountains, dismiss big waters, ignore deserts and canyons. They confirm my emancipation from two-dimensional earth. They affirm my citizenship in three-dimensional sky.
The pilot’s unique perspective rewired my brain. It replaced street and highway grids with a mental moving map that reveals the true lay of the land and plots straight lines between departure and destination. Frustrating on the ground, but priceless in the sky. So for this morning’s flight to the Waorani village of Damointaro, I turned to the direct heading—074 degrees—and climbed to 4,500 feet (local procedures allowed us to ignore the hemisphere rule).
