Lost & Found: The Death Of A True Maverick

1fastdog.

Posted to Etcetera on Mon Oct 06, 2008 at 10:22:50 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

The plane wreckage of adventurer extraordinaire, Steve Fossett was found last week in the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, a little over a year after the aviator went missing.

Fossett, 63, went missing last year during a solo pleasure flight from Nevada; he and his plane were never found -- until this week when hiker Preston Morrow stumbled on the documents hidden under a blanket of pine needles.

While the past several weeks have seen the meaning of the word "maverick" diluted to the point of nothingness by its ubiquitous usage as campaign terminology by John McCain, it's certainly a term that one could apply to Fossett.
An airplane pilot; balloon pilot; airship pilot; glider pilot; sailor; mountain climber; cross-country skier; Fossett held world records in almost every category of adventuring that he competed in. The money he made as a commodities trader allowed him the luxury of taking up whatever sporting hobby that appealed to his inner yearnings. It's a tribute to Fossett's idealism, that he wasn't just a millionaire who bought himself records with his wealth only - he picked categories of adventure that required skill, determination, steely resolve, courage, and above average smarts and endurance.

What really resonated about Fossett's life and its abrupt end was how unusual he was, how dogged the search for his wreck was - and how in the end, even a multimillionaire with access to the best flight expertise in the world can die alone in the mountains like any other pilot who has a moment of horrific luck.

Admire him or not, the saga of Fossett and those who hunted for him speaks of many things we hold dear here in the West: The can-do willingness to push the envelope, the eagerness to plunge into the wilderness for a cause, and the unforgiving challenge of the vast, rugged expanse of mountains and desert that we call home.

Fossett's was not a typical story.

We are unlikely to see many like it again

While it's been an oft-used quote for others, it seems wholly appropriate to apply it to Fossett, a true maverick.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew --
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-- John Gillespie Magee, Jr