Attitude Check--No Blooper

Attitude Check--No Blooper

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and
perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him
endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God."1

Recently I wrote in a Daily Encounter about a pilot's
"attitude check." A part of what I quoted was as
follows: "But that word 'attitude' can be a
life-or-death word for a pilot. One of my friends
described a plane's attitude to me as its position
relative to the ground, to the horizon…. After decades
of flying, including landing on aircraft carriers, he
summarized the importance of a plane's attitude this
way: 'Right attitude, you keep flying. Wrong attitude,
you stop flying.'"

And yes, I had several sincere readers inform me that
I made a blooper as the word I should have used was
"altitude" and not "attitude." I always appreciate
corrections from readers. Often they are right. When
they are, I make the correction on the archived copy.

However, regarding the "attitude check" I asked a
pilot friend about this. He then sent the Daily
Encounter in question to several pilots and a pilot
instructor, all of whom said the Daily Encounter was
correct that "attitude" is as important as "altitude."
The pilot instructor, Jennifer Avery, wrote, "Altitude
is critical too, but it doesn't matter how high you
are, if your attitude is wrong you will still
certainly crash--it just takes longer to hit the
ground. Student Pilots are taught that: Attitude +
Power (RPM) = Performance (i.e. speed, height, rate of
turn, rate of climb or descent )."

One of the pilots, Alan Stray, who is with the
Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the Australian
accident investigators, gave this marvelous
illustration: "By the way, regarding instrument
approaches using the ILS [Instrument Landing System],
if you keep the needles [hair lines on the instrument
panel] crossed, you will fly the approach safely down
the localiser and on glideslope. If the localiser
needle moves to the left or right, you follow it to
bring it back to the middle of the instrument and
likewise if the glideslope needle moves up or down,
you follow it until the needles form a cross. If you
keep your eyes on the cross you will arrive at
'home'." (See 2 below.)

Until today I had no idea what the localizer or
glideslope were, but what a marvelous illustration
regarding life. If we keep our eyes on the cross [of
Christ], putting our trust in him for our eternal
salvation, we too will arrive safely at home to be
with the Lord forever.

Right Cross we live--wrong "cross" we die--eternally.*

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, in the words of the
hymn-writer, 'In the cross of Christ I glory, towering
o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.' I thank you that
because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, I have
been forgiven of all my sins, and have the assurance
of eternal salvation to live with you forever in
heaven. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer.
Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

*For a safe "spiritual attitude check" see "How to Be
Sure You’re a Real Christian" at:
http://tinyurl.com/real-christian

1. Hebrews 12:2 (NIV).
2. NOTE for those who are interested: Pilot Les Nixon
of Australia's Outback Patrol,
(http://www.outbackpatrol.com.au) explained that the
ILS (Instrument Landing System) is a radio system
installed at every major airport runway in the world.
The pilot's radio locks onto two signals concurrently,
one for latitude--left and right, and the other for
altitude, the glideslope up and down. When the two
fine hairs on the instrument panel cross and center,
the plane is exactly on the ILS glideslope. It usually
starts about 10 miles out at 3000 feet above ground
level, and progressively guides the plane through the
rain, snow, fog and dark to the threshold of the
active runway.

<)))><

* * * * * * *

Daily Encounter is published at no charge by
ACTS International, a non-profit organization,
and made possible through the donations of
interested friends. Donations can be sent at:
http://www.actscom.com

ACTS International
P.O. Box 73545
San Clemente, California 92673-0119
U.S.A.

Phone: 949-940-9050
http://www.actsweb.org

Copyright (c) 2009 by ACTS International.

When copying or forwarding include the following:
"Daily Encounter by Richard (Dick) Innes (c) 2009
ACTS International.