RobertoRagazzoni

This profile is the model
of a wing section.

It's called a wingspan.

And this, in particular,
is called Gottinga 398:

is the wing section
of this small tourist plane.

The wing is pushed into the air,

which divides at this point,
which is the leading edge,

and creates that magic that's called lift.

And so we trivialized dozens of years
of aerodynamics studies

in a split second.

This is true for both small
and large aircraft:

so, for example, we can go
to an exotic place, on vacation,

thousands of kilometres away
with a few hours flying -

of course, when possible.

Increasing the angle
between the wing and the air flow,

you can have a lot of lift

even when the wing moves
at a relatively slow speed,

how it happens - how it must happen! -
during landing and take-off.

But, there's a but:

if the angle increases
beyond a limit angle,

which is called critical angle,

a phenomenon occurs whereby the lift,
sometimes suddenly, stops.

We give a name to many phenomena:

and this, which is important,
as you can guess,

makes no exception.

And in Italian, we call it
"Stallo" [Stalemate].

What a strange word the stalemate is.

It is said: "The formation
of the Government is stalled";

"The meeting came to a standstill."

But also in more trivial things:
if we are on a diet,

"The loss of pounds has stalled."

We associate the word "Stallo"
with immobilism, with non-action:

yet, if a wing has a lift, and stalls,

suddenly it can only do what it can do:

that is to fly ballistically
towards the ground,

fall or something.

The English use
a very similar word, "stall."

Spanish people say "perdida" instead

which is a term that evokes
something much more serious.

The Germans, who are always very accurate,

they call it "Strömungsabrisse",
which means "demolition of the flow":

very technical.

All in all, I prefer
the term we attribute.

I didn't show up: I'm an astronomer,
I build telescopes,

tools that I launch into space,
at the conquest of planets or comets;

or that we mount on telescopes

in the most hidden places on our planet,

for example on top of the Hawaii Islands
or the Canary Islands,

or in the desert of Chile,
Arizona or California.

For work, whenever possible,

I move a lot with commercial traffic.

And when the plane,
until almost twenty years ago,

has some modest turbulence,

I usually get nervous, I start sweating,

open the air vent;

and I begin to express,
perhaps aloud, my opinion

that maybe it isn't worth the risk

for the mirrors, or the lenses,
that we're trying to study.

And of course, my colleagues
don't miss an opportunity to gloat,

pointing out

that my expressions,
sometimes very colorful,

are at odds with statistical evidence

that flights, transports
by commercial plane,

remain one of the most
statistically secure systems.

And so happens what
I couldn't have foreseen either,

and that many friends
would not have suspected at all:

in 2004, in a summer
of complete loneliness -

let's say unlucky in love -

I sign up - like this,
just to do something new,

something strange,
something life-changing,

I take flying lessons,
and it's a revelation to me.

Looking at the world from above
is a fantastic, magical thing;

I buy an old tourist plane right away,

with two partners,

with which we spend
more time fixing it than flying it.

Besides, I think with that little plane

we never left the Mugello Valley,

from which we had our first flights.

And all the people who come to this world

ask, perhaps frightened, what happens

when the engine that moves these planes -
which is very small - shuts down.

The plane becomes a kind of glider:

it's not much of a glider,
but it's what we need right now.

And technically,

you can even land the plane
in a tiny square of land.

In the course, this manoeuvre -
simulated, but not so much -

although with an instructor at your side
ready to handle the situation,

is performed over and over again.

Strange as it may seem,

most fatal accidents in this world,

does not occur due to lack of propulsion,

which, however, is now
an extremely rare phenomenon,

apart from cases of gross errors,

such as running out of fuel;

but rather, because
during the slow flight,

maybe just in the take-off
and landing phases,

you can't keep between you
and the stalemate

all those intervals,
those obstacles, that distance

that they teach you obsessively,
during the course, to keep.

Because stalemate can also be
something natural:

you're flying, and maybe
one of the two wings stalls;

and if, for example,
you stall with the right wing,

the plane suddenly starts
pointing its nose

in the opposite direction
to the one you're flying:

can be very confusing.

Moreover, the stall can be solved
in a relatively simple way:

you just deliberately
crash the plane for a few seconds,

so that this one picks up speed
and starts to have lift again.

This is an unnatural move
that is taught to the pilot

so that you avoid,

when the aircraft is losing altitude,

to try to put your nose up,

which would further worsen the situation:

but rather to promote, second it.

It is an unnatural move,
obsessively taught to the student,

and which is summed up in the phrase:
"In flight, speed is life".

And so, we get to the stall date,

which in my case happens at 12:17
on July 17th, 2011.

The appointment is not in Samarkand,
but in Massalengo, near Milan,

where I am a passenger on the plane
of a friend of mine who is flying.

I was an instructor at the time,

but it's just a fun flight.

It happens because we don't prevent
a series of mistakes,

and we only rush to fix it
at the last minute.

Because in these little planes,

although they are slower
than commercial traffic,

actually, flying quite low
compared to scheduled aircraft,

there's no time to review
the footage of your life,

like we hear in passengers

of a plane that undergoes
some emergency.

Plus, in that case
someone else is flying for you,

and this is certainly not the case here.

With these little planes,
everything happens damn fast:

the stalling plane,
the crashing plane on one side,

me returning to command -

all these planes have dual controls,
as in driving schools;

the aeroplane regaining speed, lift;

and yet, unfortunately,
at that point we are very low:

we have trees in front of us.

And the words resonate in my ears

that the instructors have told me
a thousand times,

and that I myself
keep telling my students.

That is, when we are slow,
and we have an obstacle before us,

trying to fly over it,
getting the plane up even higher,

could be hopeless.

Much better to get into the treetops,

rather than running the risk
of stalling in front of it, or over it.

I meditated for a long time

if I had the opportunity
to acknowledge this mistake earlier,

and on my obviously erroneous assessment

that verbally alerting my flightmate,

who was in charge,

was sufficient to solve the issue.

There's nothing to do:

when you're 300 feet off the ground,
with a stalled wing,

you must not think, you must act.

And so I did.

We went into the treetop,

the crown dampened the speed of the plane,

a trunk has ripped
one of the wings apart,

we landed upside down
on the edge of a canal.

Damage to aircraft tanks

made the gasoline leak out,
so the plane didn't lit.

We came out in a bit of a trouble:

I was almost unharmed,

my flight companion had the need

of a few weeks of hospital,

a few months to recuperate.

But we both flew back together
as soon as we could.

Because, by stealing a term
from the horse racing,

"Saddle hurts, saddle heals":

so, even though I had to use violence,

I tried as soon as I could to fly back.

Of course, the world has changed,
not just in the way we fly.

Now I'm doing it in a much wiser
and much more rational way,

perhaps obsessively analyzing
weather conditions

or the conditions of the runway
where I must land;

or by continually testing me
in marginal conditions,

but in a safe situation,

to avoid having to do it suddenly,

in the face of a genuine emergency.

And so, you learn that being defensive

doesn't necessarily mean
taking a step back,

but rather to be able
to have the awareness

of when taking a step back
is the only possible way.

So, don't stop flying, absolutely:

on the contrary, almost fly more.

But to do so with an awareness
of that information

that until that moment
you had only read in the books,

had been told to you
by a lot of other people -

on the other hand, we cannot make
all the possible mistakes in our lives -

and all of a sudden seep into your pores.

And the whole world suddenly takes
on a completely different flavor.

Suddenly, everything becomes a bonus,
everything becomes free;

and so you find yourself celebrating
the anniversaries of this rebirth.

Soon it'll be ten years from now,

and I can't wait to celebrate adulthood.

And learn to try to do

those things you left out, thinking
you were going to do later,

and risked remaining pure fantasies.

You understand the significance
of doing, compared to discussing,

how easy it is to fall into unnecessary
and endless discussions,

that are different from achieving a goal,

from achieving a result.

And the accident as a metaphor
for so many things that happen in life.

When you have to make a quick decision
to do something "wrong,"

like throwing yourself into the treetops,

because you deem it the lesser evil,

and the irrelevance
of the endless discussions

that you can do, maybe sitting in a bar,

compared to what was more or less
appropriate to do.

And also the inevitability
of what's beautiful.

The incontrovertible fact
that flying on an aircraft,

and look at the world from above,

or look at the sky with a telescope
that's never been built before,

conceal such beautiful things inside them

to make this drive incredible,

and prevent us
from not continuing to do so.

Were they, were we lucky?

I just acted in the way that,
in flight manuals,

can be found under
"Recovery of the stalemate"?

Maybe I should have hung
the cloche on the nail.

as they say,

so as to put in the most abject way
between me and the source of the risk

a distant root, in order
to simply prevent this risk?

I don't know.

This second chance

accompanies me, invisible,
for almost ten years,

and I'm not sure I used it the best way.

But I'm sure, incontrovertibly certain,

to keep trying to do it with all my will.