| Flying John McAfee |
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Page 5 of 6 
McAfee’s fears are not idle. On his right arm, there’s a recently added teardrop below the tattoo of the Sky Gypsies symbol. Last November, McAfee’s nephew, Joel Bitow, was flying with a student from Rodeo to Bisbee, Arizona. Though just 22 years old with only 65 hours of piloting experience under his belt, Bitow showed considerable promise as a pilot and was heading up a local training program. Then, at 9:30 that morning, with clear skies, good visibility, and no obstructions in sight, Bitow flew into the side of a canyon. He and his passenger were both killed. McAfee thinks the passenger may have had a heart attack and fallen on the controls. Others suspect that Bitow’s flight experience simply proved inadequate amid the inherent dangers of flying low in unforgiving terrain. No one knows for sure.If the accident brought home the potential for death, it did not dim McAfee’s enthusiasm: “When we’re aerotrekking, it’s [a line] between safety and danger. You can cross the line where you’re no longer in charge of your safety. Or you can ride the edge of fear in perfect safety.” One day, I was hanging out in McAfee’s kitchen while he was in the next room, working on personal business. One of the Sky Gypsies wandered in from outside and started chatting with him. That kind of thing happens all the time; McAfee lives in an astonishingly open way, having welcomed into his life a more or less random group of men and women whose only real connection is a passion for flying. People and their dogs blow in and out continually. All are cheerfully welcomed, and McAfee always makes time to sit down and shoot the breeze. I went in and joined the conversation, which somehow came around to the fact that I was due to be married in a few months’ time. McAfee asked if I wanted to have kids, and I said I thought I did. He said that he’d been through parenthood—he has one daughter, by an earlier marriage—and he’s over it. “Whatever fantasy you have about life after children, it’s going to be far worse,” he said. “You will have to sacrifice the thing that you hold dearest: your freedom.” Maybe he’s right. Maybe putting on the halter of responsibility is a kind of betrayal of one’s true purpose. But I can’t help but wonder whether freedom doesn’t have its own price. Is it really possible to be entirely true to yourself without being irresponsible to others? That day we took off from the dry lakebed, McAfee separated from the group and headed west, following the rising ground toward a ridgeline. Descending to a dry riverbed, he carved a series of S-turns above the steep banks, swooping over piles of rocks and dry gravel slopes. It was like running the streambed on the ATVs, but at four times the speed. He aimed for the crown of an ancient tree, then flicked the wing up and zoomed over the top. |
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