Faith is something I have on a limited basis. George Michael says you gotta have it, but it's something that's hard for me to have. Not that I need "proof", or that I'm some huge cynic, it's just that faith, to me, is like trust. It's something that I feel that...well, I'll just tell you a story.

I left at 8.30 am with my wife and kids in our car and my parents following us in theirs, drove for an hour, sat in traffic for three hours, moved probably less than 1 mile in 1 hour at one point, waiting to see my friend fly his F-16.

We were sitting in the car, trying to get to the airport where the show was being held. We realised that we wouldn't make it to the airport on time, so we started debating what to do after we watched him fly. I looked south, as I had been doing every few minutes. I noticed a black mass rising against the cloudy sky, turning upwards. What happened next, I wasn't expecting, couldn't have predicted - I started to cry.

Blinking away tears, I stared up at the sky, watching a childhood friend do impossible things. It's weird. You see people on TV or in movies doing these things, I had played an FA-18 Hornet computer simulator game and done similar things in the safety of a virtual world. But knowing that someone you had grown up with, who you had shared a great deal of time and who unknowingly helped shape you, someone who you laughed, listened and loved with, was twisting a multi-million-dollar jet - rolling and turning, looping and pulling.

I would include pictures of his show here if I had been in a mind to remember that I had a camera with me.

And you would think that this would be where the "faith" part of the story would kick in, faith in friends, faith in family, faith in my country. Faith in a god.

The faith that I'm speaking of is of a more obscure nature, and I need to explain more of the story.

After we watched him, we got ready to go, turned and watched a B-2 Stealth bomber fly over, and after that an old Soviet MiG-15. The line to get into the show was still immobile, so we decided to just go get lunch and play it by ear from there. I ended up talking with my friend on my cell phone while at the restaurant and told him how incredible it was to see him flying. He told me to call back and tell him what our plans were after we ate.

We finished lunch and decided to give it a go again. My friend suggested we at least try to watch the Blue Angels, who were also flying that afternoon. We made our way back to the airport, drove quickly along the same roads that packed to a stop just 2 hours earlier and reached the airport just in time to see them take off and begin their maneuvers. In between flybys and formations, we coordinated with my parents and my friend, finally meeting in a hospitality tent on the runway by the hangars.

I'll back up for just a second to describe how I felt watching the Angels fly. My father is a pilot, and I had never really felt the urge/need/desire to learn how myself. Watching what these pilots were doing was incredibly elevating, and I was in thrall. I stood on the back bumper of my car snapping pictures, having been reminded of my camera by my wife. I stood as tall as I could, pointing to where the next pass was coming from, framing a picture then dropping the camera as quickly as I could to see them fly past with my own eyes. Inversions, spirals, incredibly tight flying formations...I was having the reaction I had never had as a child, even though I had been to plenty of air shows. I wanted to be up there, flying. I think a father usually wants his son to follow in his footsteps, and it's always been somewhat disappointing for me that I've not been interested. But we also accept that we're different - I hear a different tune, just like my dad always has.

Back to the story. When we met up with my parents and my friend, the Angels were still flying. I kept watching in awe, lifting my oldest child onto my shoulders to watch as well. The sounds of the afterburners and the air being forced to the will of the pilots wasn't too loud. Surprisingly, to me, it was a welcome sound. It was familiar, though, being the child of a pilot. I'd heard jet engines regularly as a child, it was a part of my life that I took for granted for years. I wasn't quite sure why the welcomeness of the sound was surprising until long after the show, after I arrived home that night.

Little tip: here comes the "faith" part.

I heard jets flying over as I sat at home, over 12 hours after our trek began that morning. Commercial jets, as we live about 90 minutes away from where the air show took place, near a municipal airport, but the loud whooshing sounds of jets. And for the first time since, well, since about 11 months ago, I wanted to look up.

I wanted to see planes moving through the air, I wanted to be dazzled and floored. I was interested in seeing the miracle of flight as I had grown up with it, the line of a jet through and over, instead of into. You see, 11 months ago, I had ceased to see planes as miracles, and instead as weapons. I had recently told my sister about how seeing a plane since then made me uncomfortable. How it had been such a familiar thing as kids, but now had become an unwelcome harbinger. I'm not reactionary, but the images had been burned into my mind. Today, a phoenix rose from those ashes.

Watching the Angels, I wanted to join them, I wanted to be in the air.

Watching my friend, I rejoiced in my car, bound to the earth, crazy with the visions and sounds.

My faith in flight was restored today. With it, my faith in my life. And my faith in friendship, and my faith in trust. A bit much, you say? Maudlin? Overwrought? Not quite. Something stolen from me was returned.

My faith in flight was restored today.