On the wing with a prayer

A fighter pilot is using his flying expertise to help fellow Christians through spiritual battles.

Richard Haines, a US Air Force ace who became a test pilot and instructor, has drawn parallels between the walk of faith and a military dogfight.

Haines, a Christian fellowship leader, has become an author to share his experience of using his profession to help navigate the believer’s problem-laden flightpath. 

“There are a lot of lessons I learned as a fighter pilot that transfer into the Christian walk,” Haines told God Reports. “When things hit the fan, so to speak, the flying of the airplane or your Christian walk needs to be habitual, it needs to be something you don’t have to think about.

“You need to be able to focus on what the enemy jet is doing. You have to know his tools, his weapons, what his capabilities are, how he attacks us, and what his endgame is, then how to counter that with our weapons.”

Haines has written Spiritual Wingman: A fighter pilot’s journey to God, which outlines eight parallels between being a Christian and a fighter pilot.

He recalls one example when he was instructing a foreign student and they lost hydraulic pressure and an engine fire light came on. Reduced to a single engine and with minimal fuel, the student forgot how to speak English in the midst of the emergency.

Thankfully, the drama unfolded in a flight simulator, but when the same thing happened in a real jet a few months later, Haines used his training to manage the emergency expertly.