I’m typing this from the cool shade of a large airplane hangar in southern Wisconsin, typing on my iPhone while the Thunderbirds blast off into the sunshine. I’m here to share the time honored aviation tradition of an air show–a singular genre of event that brings pilots together as friends. We arrived in a gleaming, [...]
Posts from ‘May, 2010’
Reaching for the sun.
My heart was filled with joy on Wednesday night after completing my first flight lesson with this charming and incredibly intelligent young woman, whose next challenge in life is learning to fly this little red and white Cessna 152. She is very motivated, and I sense that we’re off to a great start. To celebrate [...]
Metamorphosis.
It’s amazing when things change right before your eyes, and your eyes are open wide enough to notice. The weekend kicked off on Saturday morning, when I flew with an instrument student who’s been struggling a bit the last few lessons. For whatever reason he had his magic a-ha moment, and flew several approaches partial [...]
Strong storm.
As I walked out of my house yesterday with M2 to begin our evening stroll around the neighborhood, I heard a rumble of thunder. My heart raced with excitement, because I love thunderstorms — the way they smell and sound, the way the wind feels against my face, the anticipation of the pounding rain, and [...]
Opposite extremes.
This weekend I had the pleasure of experiencing what might be considered two opposite extremes of flying: a long cross country trip in a glass cockpit Cirrus SR20, and a low-and-slow tumble through the turbulence on a breezy, warm afternoon in a light sport aircraft on floats. We met at Peachtree-Dekalb Airport and flew this [...]
IFR to Atlanta
I’m really looking forward to today’s IFR flight from Manassas, VA to Atlanta in a Cirrus SR20. I’ll be spending the weekend learning and sharing with an incredibly motivated and intelligent group of pilots. More later… filing a flight plan now, then out the door.
Delayed but not deterred.
“Time to spare, go by air.” It’s a well known cliche and fact of life for general aviation pilots. Things break, the weather changes, and sometimes we get stuck on the ground. I got airborne in the Seminole today, but not for long. A minor equipment failure occurred, but a failure nonetheless, so we came [...]
Serendipity.
Serendipity: An aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. Yesterday was one of the stranger but better days I’ve ever had the pleasure of living, and the positive energy seemed to flow purely by chance. Or was it something else? When I arrived at the airplane shortly before 6 p.m., my mind was swirling with [...]