It’s go time.

I pull on my black pleather flight gloves. With a faint whimper of protest, the petro-textile strains to contain my fat fingers (it’s genetic). I adjust my sunglasses. Not Ray-Bans, but you can’t tell from a distance, and anyway they don’t carry Ray-Bans for $5.99 at the gas station. I grip the infrared remote. A thrill runs through my whole body.

I own the heavens. I’m faster than the Devil’s own dirty thoughts. I’m a defender of liberty. A sentry of the skies. I am what Tommy Lee Jones called—in the 1990 anti-drug classic Fire Birds—“a first-class all-American hero with his heart and brain wired together, cooking full-tilt boogie for freedom and justice.” America’s enemies: I give ‘em the bird. The whirly-bird.

And what a bird she is! Tiny and ultra-lightweight, she’s crafted from a “Unique Material” that’s reputed to “Withstand Crashes.” Ha! One day I’d like to meet the sad little desk jockeys who write this stuff. Withstands crashes! NOT THE WAY I CRASH, PAL.

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