Tom Seim wrote:
This type of adrenaline rush is what attracts people to our sport.
They don't like to admit (I took some heat when I characterized them
as "adrenaline junkies"), but it is true. We want to subscribe to some
higher calling, such as "the thrill of the flight". But we are
deluding ourselves: we want to expose ourselves to danger and escape -
producing the adrenaline rush. Knowing this can protect us; there is a
limit, if we cross it we WILL DIE.

I was a carrier pilot in the Navy, and I am a (lapsed, for the moment)
glider pilot. I also rock climb as a sport.

Some attractive parts of Navy flying were about cheating death, e.g.,
night carrier landings. But other parts were about the feeling you get
through the ability to move in ways not possible otherwise, kind of like
dancing I guess. My absolute most enjoyable flights were post
maintenance checks on the jet on a blue sky/towering cumulus days, where
once the check was done, I could loop and dive around the clouds,
popping through tunnels in the clouds, loop inverted with the cloud tops
just below my canopy, and even hang at zero airspeed for a second in a
narrow vertical tunnel. None of this had to do with cheating death. It
was all about freedom of movement.

Can't do any of those things in a glider, yet somehow I get the same
sensation of freedom of movement. Especially in wave or ridge. So there
are other attractions, for sure.

When I want adrenaline, I go rock climbing.