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Fighting Flight
By Shanon Kern
C-FHAD making a water landing. (Courtesy Shanon Kern)On a warm June day, in Vancouver B.C., my family and I watched in awe as small single engine air taxis took off from the bay and disappeared over the horizon. I could see the amazement and wonder in my children’s eyes as the single engine caravan taxied out to the center of the bay and magically lifted upward. In an instant, I was transported back to my own childhood amazement of flight. My Father, a newly minted commercial pilot, flew the “Sports book” from Laughlin, Nev. to Las Vegas, Nev. every night for the casinos. I was his sleeping stow away. By the age of five, my mind was convinced that I would be a pilot like my father.
By the age of seven, my father had changed careers and stopped flying. Somewhere over the years, as life progressed, I had forgotten about my young dreams of becoming a pilot. I was left instead with a completely unfounded and debilitating fear of heights and flying. I spent my entire twenties distancing myself from the dreams of the younger “me”.
Cessna Celebrates First International TTx Delivery
Cessna Aircraft Company, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, is celebrating the first international delivery of the new Cessna TTx, the world’s fastest commercially produced and certified fixed-gear single-engine aircraft, to a customer in Thailand.
The TTx was certified in July and enters the global marketplace as Cessna’s all-composite aircraft designed specifically for comfort, speed and luxury.
Kiatichai Monsereenusorn, managing director of Kiattana Transport, accepted his aircraft in a handover ceremony in Independence, Kansas, saying the TTx will allow him to quickly visit multiple business sites per day, and do so in a comfortable, luxurious aircraft that is also fun to pilot.
Cessna Turbo Skylane JT-A Takes First Production Flight
Cessna Aircraft Company has announced the first production flight of its Turbo Skylane 182 JT-A took place late in May at the company’s facility in Independence, Kan.
Early Adventure In My Luscombe 8A
By Steve Weaver
The early summer twilight was fading by the minute. Darkness was descending like a cloak on the rugged West Virginia landscape that was slipping by a thousand feet below the dangling wheels of the white Luscombe I was flying.
I felt the first stirrings of panic rising in my chest as the seriousness of my situation dawned on me and I stared frantically down at the lights of cars moving on the now invisible roads below. Inside them I knew were ordinary people, safely making their way home along familiar highways, following the bright beams of their headlights to the warmth of family and the comforts of hearth and supper. I wanted to be with them. I wanted out of this devil machine that was carrying me to my apparent doom. I wanted my mom.
It was June of 1962. The week before I had not only soloed the Piper Colt trainer at the old airpark where I was learning to fly, I’d bought a perky little Luscombe 8A the following day and checked out in it too. At that point I’d logged about nine total hours in the air, I’d soloed two machines and made one of them mine. My flying career was right on track.