At last we bought a Super Decathlon. Quite a while ago my wife, Jan, and I had decided that someday owning a Decathlon made sense from a business as well as a personal standpoint. We imagined wintering in Santa Paula, CA and flying to McCall, ID for the summers. Of course, I’d continue to instruct [...]
Will Fly for Food
Eight Weeks, Part III
Thermal, CA Following the stints in Reno and Corvallis (see Part II) came my first-ever trip to Thermal, CA. Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM) sits between Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. Looming more than 10,000 feet high to the Northwest, San Jacinto Peak still sported a splotch of snow; to the South, a persistent [...]
Eight Weeks, Part II
Part I laid out the key stats for the busy-yet-typical time frame of April 11 to June 6, 2008. Now I’ll describe some of the highlights of the business trips I took during that period. Though accurate, “business” sounds so formal, doesn’t it? Especially when you consider the objective: fly some cool airplanes, with interesting [...]
Eight Weeks, Part I
This is the inaugural post to my blog, so I figured I’d start by recounting some of the recent goings-on in my life as a full-time flight instructor. I completely and utterly surrendered myself to aviation about 1,080 weeks ago. Many would consider the path I’ve followed to be an unorthodox one—I guess you could [...]