Being a pilot has been a life goal since childhood, but my primary career for 42 enjoyable years was as a U.S. and international secondary-level teacher, primarily of French. While a junior and senior at the University of Northern Colorado in...
Fifteen hundred feet past the end of the runway, a pilot was trapped in the cockpit of an Extra NG. They were inverted in a Florida marsh, and the brackish water was rising. Airport emergency trucks couldn’t drive into the swampy...
What do you mean, ‘We’re stuck?’ My buddy Chris looked at me like I’d suddenly decided to try some outrageous joke to start the day. I was standing in the shallow water beside my Cessna 182 amphibious floatplane, which had carried...
One of the first questions I toss out to a prospective flight student is, “Why do you want to learn to fly?” These getting-acquainted sessions are simply back-and-forth information swaps, providing the potential learner a chance to size me up, as...
“Out of gas in air. God help us,” texted the Cessna 172 passenger to a family member. It was what the British call Boxing Day on December 26, 2021. The pilot was the passenger’s boyfriend. They were flying at 4,000 feet...
After getting married in 1990, my wife, Jill, and I spent several years restoring a 1946 Stinson 108. Serial number 256 made this early variant a dash nothing. The intent was to own an airplane capable of visiting each state in...
Jimmy Doolittle was a man of firsts. First flight across the country. First flight solely by reference to instruments. First successful outside loop. In fact, it could be said that he is, in many ways, responsible for flying as we know...
