Time for you to fly after you get your Pilot's License
Time for you to fly after you get your Pilot's License
It was a regular trip for the 1990s: jump in the Alaska Department of Public Safety’s unmarked Cessna 185 on straight drifts, remove from Hangar Lake in Bethel, as well as head north for the Yukon River under overcast August skies. Given that the only freight was an outboard watercraft electric motor for the Saint …
Back in the early 1980s, I had the privilege of military service at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne’s 2nd/505th Combat Support Company. I served under both the Carter and Reagan administrations. In the Army, barring things like guard duty or a stand-down, life in the DRF (division ready force) was either invigorating, like the …
Advertisement I am not a flyer, and the last time I stepped into a small plane, I was much younger and certainly more adventurous. So when my good friend Eric invited me to go flying in a Cessna, you can be sure that the first thing that came to mind was the image of a …
Advertisement In July 1973, when I was 15 years old, my family moved from Bellevue, Nebraska, to Clark Air Base on Luzon Island in the Republic of the Philippines. This was our family’s seventh move in 12 years because of my father’s service in the U.S. Air Force. We lived in a comfortable house in …
Advertisement As the Cessna Amphibian I’m flying emerges from the ragged overcast into the fading light of a cool September evening, I can barely pick out the end of the runway through the rain-smeared windshield. A stiff left crosswind shoves me off centerline, requiring a boot-full of rudder to keep the nose straight. After touchdown …
Advertisement The storied town of Greenville, Maine, sits at the bottom end of the northern part of the state in an area called the Great North Woods. It curls around the foot of 40-mile-long Moosehead Lake and is a good three-hour drive due north from Portland, Maine—three hours if you don’t hit a deer or …
Advertisement BE-BEEP…BE-BEEP… I’m on call for St. Patrick Hospital Life Flight. BE-BEEP…BE-BEEP…BE-BEEP… It’s 2 a.m. on a Friday in February of 2004. The King Air was preflighted at the start of my shift. I will need to evaluate any flight prior to our dispatch center confirming the flight with the requesting medical facility. The weather …
Advertisement Along the Gulf Coast of Texas, we are occasionally, after a cold front moves through, blessed with almost perfect flying weather. The humidity drops, the temperature cools, and all plans for being in the office drop away. And you’re not alone, as almost every pilot within 200 square miles decides to head to their …