This article is from Danish Another World nr. 1, November 2003.
The magazine can be ordered at www.another-world.dk

Danish article
German article (Free MIND no. 2, December 2003)

Lars Najbjerg [Photo: Thorsten Overgaard]

THROUGH THE PINHOLE
By: Thorsten Overgaard

On a warm August day with teenagers sun bathing on the coast, two F-16 fighters are flying in patrol formation above the ocean. Far above the clouds the sun beams are brightening the view that stretches over several hundred kilometers on all sides of their cockpits, and down at a few white clouds scattered in the sky. The noise from the jets is surprisingly quiet in the cockpits as the fighter jets cut their way through the freezing sky at 950 km/hr, 14 kilometers above the ocean, while twenty five liters of fuel are transformed every minute into a white line stretching behind each fighter.

As they approach the Russian territory, twelve miles from Kaliningrad and the Russian millitary base, they reduce their altitude to 100 meters where the air is thicker and the fuel comsumption rises above sixty liters of fuel every minute. The pilots keep an eye on their instruments. A scanner will alert them of any detection by Russian radar stations, but so far nothing happened.

Suddendly however, a short alarm beeps as a Russian radar station detects their presence. Warnings are being issued on the international mayday radio frequency. Shortly after a Russian Sukio fighter jet is on their trail. Short orders sound on the radios and the two F-16s turn down along the border over the ocean towards international air space.

The standard operating procedure for Russan fighters is to fly their jets behind an enemy and lock their missiles so that they can launch them the exact second a jet passes the border. There is no mercy and it requires a sensible decision to control the situation intelligently. Even though the fighters are still some miles away from Russian territory it is not taken too lightly. Time is scarce, the lead pilot gives out a short order and the two Danish fighters take a sharp turn to the right low above the ocean. The Russian fighter flies by above them and seems to have lost them on his radar. The Danish lead pilot gives out another short order and the two Danish fighters accelerate and chase the Russian. The Russian pilot still hasn’t detected them and the Danish lead pilot fighter appears on the Russian’s plane’s side while the second Danish F16 fighter is placed in shooting range behind him.

Now all three fighters are in international air space heading away from the Russian air space.

Lars Najbjerg [selv portrait, private photo]

They wave to each other
The Danish lead pilot tilts his wings up and down, which is the international sign for grouping into formation with him. This is however not neccesarily the rule for Russians pilots. But, surprisingly, the Russian accepts the invitation and moves into close formation with the Danish F-16, wing to wing, so close that they can easily see from one cockpit to another. They fly like that for a while, kind of hand-in-hand, while the two pilots exchanges signs and wave to each other, until the Russian makes a sudden and fast acceleration upwards and turns back towards Kaliningrad. The Danish pilots haven’t got fuel enough to follow, even if they wanted to.

”We got him... but only with a camera. It was a cool moment.”

The year was 1995, five years after the Berlin wall went down. Back on the ground a sunny day in Denmark. Lars Najbjerg is lying on the grass while he tells the story, his pilot jacket is hanging peacefully on the apple tree and his wife is inside the house, painting the first floor.

Both of them just returned from a four year stay in Great Britain and now their house is being renovated after having been rented out. He is dressed in a white T-shirt with a two-F16-fighters motive and white paint stains of the same color as the newly painted walls of the living room.

Lars Najbjerg is a distinguished graduate pilot from the NATO flying school in Texas, Sheppard Air Force Base. This is the story of how a boy dreamt about flying, made it through the pinhole and materialized his dream of wings.

”I’ve always wanted to become a pilot. At five years I started asembling and flying my first model planes. When I was sixteen I parachuted ... I guess because I thought it to be a practical preparation as a pilot. So you can get down, in case.”

”Whenever people asked what I wanted to be, I would answer pilot., nobody believed that, so most often the comment was that it was purely impossible. But always, as long as I can remember, I wanted to become a pilot. In fact there was nothing else I wanted to become, I never had any plan B.”

”Before I was 18 I started taking lessons to get a civilian flying certificate but my instructor there got me onto the right track. He had a military background and said I had to be pretty stupid not to take the top-education the military could offer.”

LLars Najbjerg in flight suit – and in free fall [private photo]

Hundreds of applicants narrowed down to 5 pilots
At the age of 18, Lars Najbjerg applied for the test to become a fighter pilot. A mighty small pinhole where the applicants are thoroughly screened even before the tests. From a large number of applicants a group of only fifty is allowed to do the test itself. And from that test none or only one continues on the yearly selection of 20 pilot applicants that actually start training at the military flight base. After a number of flying tests 15 go out and only 5 remain and are sent to the prestigious Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas to go through a topnotch education to become fighter pilots.

”Already when I was parachuting I rather quickly realized that if is not the physical obstacles but the mental that limits one's performance. So I began reading books on psychology. When I found Dianetics, I was on my training as a civilian pilot and I thought to myself ”here it really is, here is a precise method to move your limits instead of a whole lot of blah-blah.” You don’t fly an aircraft by feeling and believing as many of the psychology books suggest. There is a precise method to flying. The Dianetics book and books on flying had a practical and useable method to the subject - they were very much alike. That was what appealed to me when I first read the book Dianetics.”

Although the test for military pilots is a long haul of five days stretching physically the applicants limits from dusk till dawn, Lars Najbjerg felt himself well armed:

”Just the fact that you have the knowledge about what is stopping you from doing something you would like. ... well, that just changes everything. Then you don’t blame other things such as bad genes, a tough childhood or what other reason you could find. Just the fact that you can identify the correct cause by yourself means a lot. When I went for the test I hadn’t yet experienced Dianetics but had read both Dianetics: Evolution of a Science and Fundamentals of Thought, and that helped me for sure.”

Lars Najbjerg at Sheppard Air Force Base [private photo]

The art of becoming a good pilot
The pilots are being trained for 13 months at the base in USA and then complete the rest of their education in Denmark. Lars Najbjerg found himself particularly fascinated by ”Close Air Support” where one flies at 900 kilometers an hour about 30 to 100 meters above ground in order to supply air support to soldiers at the very front.

”You fly as low as you dare, probably even lower in a real war. When flying too high it’s easier to hit the target but equally easy for others to hit you. When you leave the base you don’t know your target yet. You get told when you get there what specific needs the guys in the front have. A soldier in the front points out the target when he sees you coming in. He would for example say ”One o clock, 3 kilometers” which would indicate that the target is 3 kilometers ahead in the direction One o’clock, even you yourself can’t see it visually yet. So you arrive with 900 kilometers an hour, see the target, say a enemy tank, when it is 300 meters away from you. You have to aim, hit it bulls eye, get up and away in one and a half seconds approximately from that instant you actually see the tank. That is one of the most challenging disciplines where you get all the way out to the limit of what you can handle.”

”I have always wanted to test myself, find my limits. When you fly fighter jets, you pretty soon discover that it isn’t a matter of how much the plane can take, but what YOU yourself can take mentally that sets the limits of performance.

”Of course there is a physical stress, for example when you are turning and are being exposed to a pressure of nine times gravity.

Old love... Lars Najbjerg by a propellar from WW II. [private photo]

”When you have learned to live with the physical stress, there is only the mental barriers left to conquer.”

The goal of Dianetics is for a person to become Clear, that means a person in his best possible or optimum condition. For Lars Najbjerg to become Clear meant an astonishing difference in life and in flying.

”I wanted to be become Clear, get rid of my reactive mind (reactive mind: the part of the mind which stores past painful experiences). It was pretty real to me that THAT was what was limiting my mental abilities and thus my abilities as a pilot. The goal for me was to become the best I possibly could.

”I have an example that might illustrate the difference. Before I went clear I had once taken off with a Cessna 172 propeller plane and was flying away when the engine slowly stopped. I hurried to look for a field to land on while at the same time was sending mayday messages on the radio. I clearly remember how little power I had to analyze the situation. I had practically no power over anything except throwing the plane down on the first and best field. After landing it was not a good feeling. I saved myself and the plane, but the situation could have been avoided if I had just pulled the carburator heater – as carburator ice was the reason for it.”

”Shortly after I became clear I was testing my Giles 202 art plane. I was testing different kinds of spins, a maneuvre where the plane is flown out of control and just rotates directly towards the ground. And as I’m spinning, the engine suddenly stops! Instead of getting sweaty fingers and act in a kind of panic I got the plane under control and horizontal, and then started analyzing what the problem was with the engine until I got it started again. When the situation was under full control I went up again and did the same spin to see if the engine would stop again. And it did! After repeating it for a while I found that it had to do with the centrifugal force and could adjust the engine. When I span right the engine stopped but not when I span left!

”There was a big difference in the way I controlled the situation before and after clear. Only due to the fact that the limit of what I could mentally accomplish had been moved. I had gotten more power.”

Lars Najbjerg [Photo: Thorsten Overgaard]

Moving mental borders
While working as a fighter pilot, Lars Najbjerg was also starting an aviation company with three of his friends where they sold planes and spare parts. In 1998 he had retired from the military and sold his shares in the aviation company and moved to Great Britain to study Dianetics and perfect his knowledge of the mind and its barriers. The result being that he today is as topnotch a professional in the Dianetics method as he is in flying.

”The military was a good education, but I had to move on. Basically I’m not for war, I had to realize. But I like to fly, and I like to expand my abilities. That is why I went to UK for some years.”

”It is a great satisfaction helping others to develop mentally. I have heard that it is a problem recruiting new qualified pilots because the mental attitude – people's attitude – has changed. Instead of going for it, you give in: ”Well-yer, if it is to difficult to become a pilot I’ll have to find something else to do,” seems to be the common attitude. People have learned to live with their limitations rather than moving and expanding their abilities to what they find is needed.”

Lars Najbjerg [Photo: Thorsten Overgaard]

A toy for daredevils
While Lars Najbjerg studied in Great Britain he also found time to assemble his new toy that came as a build-it-yourself-kit. A Giles 202 art plane, probably not as well known to most people as Ferrari. But for pilots and such it is the topnotch plane.

”You rehearse different disciplines such as loops, spins, etc. And then there is competition around the world. You fly inside ”the box” which is a space in the air of 1 x 1 x 1 kilometer that you have to perform within the limits of, and then five judges on the ground are giving you points for your performance. You fly partly your own program, partly a program you recieve from the judges shortly before the competition takes place.

”When you live an ordinary daily life, your limits are rarely tested. But when you enter a high stress environment as the one in an art plane, your encounter limits quite clearly. And no matter how good you are, you can always get out there and find your limits, it is just a matter of making the program tougher.”

Lars Najbjerg in his Giles 202 art plane which is parked in a hangar near by his home.
[Photo:Thorbjørn Brunander Sund, Danish Aviation Photo]

Thorsten Overgaard, November 2003