Time for you to fly after you get your Pilot's License
Time for you to fly after you get your Pilot's License
I have actually been participating in the yearly Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for many years. Lots of have actually been attending it given that its beginning in 1954, as well as have actually never ever missed out on a year. In 1994 I was lucky to fly to Oshkosh with my …
Like many pilots, when traveling for work or pleasure and without my plane, I try to integrate new aviation experiences with our travels. In that mode, I’ve been introduced to tailwheel planes, back country flying, mountain flying, pointing it straight up in a Marchetti fighter jet, rumbling along behind a big Pratt & Whitney radial …
It all started in May 1998, after we installed factory rebuilt engines in our 1976 Piper Seneca II, YV-850P, with 3,000 hours total time. We also added long range fuel tanks, GAMI injectors, Black Magic automatic waste gates, a JPI engine monitor, a Garmin 150 GPS coupled to an STEC-55 autopilot, LoPresti speed mods, and …
In 2019 my wife Sherry and I flew our Cirrus SR22 from Florida to Nome, Alaska. In Nome, we joined the Alaska Airmen’s Association Goodwill Flight to Provedinya Bay, located in the Chukotka district of Eastern Russia. While acquiring the necessary permits, I learned that it was possible to fly entirely across Russia. I found …
It’s never been easier to fly your own plane to Mexico A white Suburban, dust trailing, pulls onto the tarmac. Sporting the quintessential Mexican mustache and glasses, the driver sizes up the dad unloading his family and the Stationair. Using a gun, the mustached man tells the wife and children to get their things out, …
2020 was an epic flying year for my son Daniel, his friend Theo, and me as we had the opportunity to fly our new plane across the country, to its new home in Nova Scotia from its previous home in Kamloops, British Columbia. New airplane? Cross-country trip? Let’s go! The idea for a new plane …
Although I’ve flown a bit in Arctic and sub-Arctic Alaska, far northern Canada was largely unknown to me. Most of what I knew came from The Call of the Wild, The Cremation of Sam McGee, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and a few episodes of Ice Pilots. For this three-day trip, I proposed to start …
Bleak. Barren. Forbidding. Lonesome. Awesome. Beautiful. Cosmopolitan. No, this isn’t one of those “pick the word that doesn’t fit” quizzes. These words all describe a three-day flight across Alaska, from Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) to Anchorage. After flying from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost landing strip in North America, I was …
Ever since I can remember, airplanes have fascinated me. The fact that something so heavy can break the bonds of the earth and fly with nothing under it other than thin air never ceases to amaze me. While age is only a number and I don’t think of it as anything other than that, the years …
Call it a post-midlife crisis. Call it my bucket list. Call it absurd. Call it expensive. OK, I plead guilty to all of the above. I decided to go anyway. Four decades ago, I learned to fly in Fairbanks, Alaska. Since then, through job changes, multiple moves, raising kids, lots of distractions, and eventually retirement, …