In Flight USA Article Categories
In Flight USA Articles
What's Up: It’s Pucker Month so? The month of love and Valentines!
By Larry Shapiro
I love each month that has a theme. Some are good, and some aren’t. It seems that most have a food theme, and then I remember I write an aviation column, and I’m suppose to write about things that are suppose to make aviators happy.
It was at that point I remembered that making an aviator happy might be above my pay grade. Then I remembered how much alike we all are… but we are polite except for a few rude ones that sneak in. I know we all appreciate the kindness and help offered to us almost everywhere when we’re trying to survive a cross-country flight.
This reminds me how few pilots ever leave their zip codes or time zones after they are sitting on their private tickets. I’m serious! I have this discussion more often than I do about ice cream. Any new aviator that works with me gets the same suggestion: When you have 100 hours, beg, borrow, or even rent an appropriate airplane, and now the “kicker,” I beg, plead, and whatever it takes to get them to do the following trip, and… to do it solo.
Flying Into Writing
By Eric McCarthy
Hello world! Welcome to my first column in In Flight USA magazine. I’m excited to share my experiences of the past, present, and future with you. I look forward to bringing you along as I explore my new home in the southwest, present “lessons learned,” and advance my aviation knowledge and skills. This should be fun!
Allow me to provide a little background: I earned my Private Pilot License in 1980, fresh out of college – I’m a long-time flyer, if not a high-timer. My father, an MIT-trained aeronautical engineer, had introduced me to flying at a young age. He earned his PPL and took me up in a rented Cessna 172 when I was in third or fourth grade. It was a short hop from Hanscom Field (KBED), just west of Boston, to Norwood Airport (KOWD), just south of Boston, but that was all it took. To see the world from a few thousand feet was just magical to a young boy! I was hooked! I couldn’t get enough of it! I loved the maps and figuring out the “secret” codes they contained about the airports, terrain, and obstacles. I’d read and cut out pictures of airplanes from his Aviation Week and Flying magazines, often before he’d had a chance to see them – drove him crazy!
Almost There
By Evan Isenstein-Brand
The engine starved and sputtered to a halt in my shaky hands. After several practice laps in the pattern, my instructor gave me a final handshake before neatly buckling his seatbelt across the seat and trotting over to join the crowd. I entered my focus mode, carefully examining my checklist before starting the engine again and receiving permission from the sympathetic tower operator to taxi out to the ramp.
Just like I had done dozens of times before, I made sure the plane was fit to fly and promptly received clearance to take off. The conditions were beautiful: little wind, few clouds in the sky, and only several other aircraft around the airport. It was the 4th of July. Of course the conditions were perfect.