Becoming Invisible
“Sometimes, we’re all alone in a crowd”Officially, the EAA AirVenture was over. Only a few hours earlier, a voice had boomed over the PA system, saying thanks and come again next year. That was the...
View ArticleWhispers
The tiny voice in our head sometimes isn’t in our headAt first, I wasn’t certain I had heard it. It was a faraway voice, not quite a whisper, and my headset killed the engine noise just enough that I...
View ArticleSetting The Record Straight
I’m not on the outside, looking in. I’m just on the outside.Lyn “I’m the boss?” Freeman, Plane & Pilot’s leader (a scary thought, at best) challenged me to put my flight-instructing skills to the...
View ArticlePitts Specialski
A world away is as near as the next key strokeAn e-mail that I received said: Report, can I gain the necessary drawings for independent building given plane PITS. Is it Beforehand thanked for...
View ArticleFlying Is Exercise
Being a hangar potato is actually hard work! No, really!Until recently, I was convinced that the only exercise I get is pushing a computer mouse around between trips to the refrigerator (it’s a rule...
View ArticleGréyjà Vu
Clouds happen—even in ArizonaWow! I just returned from the airport where I had to cancel a hop because the clouds were down around 700 feet and it was raining. This is spectacularly unusual for me. In...
View ArticleUseless Aviation
Just because you don’t do it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be doneUseless aviation. Now, there’s a term you seldom hear. It popped up in an e-mail that was addressed to me last week. The writer, a longtime...
View ArticleSerendipitous Encounters
Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time is a spiritual experienceWe were in the pattern and just in the process of turning downwind from crosswind when the tower said, “Eight-papa-bravo,...
View ArticleRecovering From The EAA AirVenture
The countdown to next year’s show begins the minute you return home We had just returned from Oshkosh, Wis., late last night, which is another way of saying that today, I’m going to be nearly useless....
View ArticleNo Offense
Keeping quiet may be the safest tactic, but it’s not always the bestExactly what part of the brain controls our egos, anyway? Since I’m not a shrink and simply apply what I’ve seen over a lifetime, I’d...
View ArticleFear Of Flying
Conquering it may just be a matter of controlAm I the only person in the aviation world who has ever gone through, and still goes through, periods of apprehension when it comes to flying? I can even go...
View ArticleSmarter Than A Tow Bar?
It hurts when even the simplest things make you feel stupidWhat’s the tennis ball for?” asked one of my students. Almost every one of them ask the same old question. I answered, “That’s one of the IQ...
View ArticleYoung Geniuses
When do you get too old to be a prodigy?The other night, at the urging of a friend, Marlene and I did something we rarely do: We went to see a band play at a local watering hole (I would have said...
View ArticleTime Flies
Tomorrow has a way of becoming yesterday entirely too quicklyAs I’m typing this, my little red airplane is in the hos-pital for a 100-hour inspec-tion that is going to cost nearly 1⁄5 of what the...
View ArticleFences
Whether real or imaginary, these obstacles keep us in and others out Yesterday, I had a surreal experience. This afternoon, I had a bitter one. And fences figured into both. Yesterday evening, a friend...
View ArticleThe Derelicts
Are airplanes ever so far gone that they’re truly dead? I’ve mentioned them before—those long-dead, thoroughly baked carcasses I taxi past each day that at some time in the past, were airplanes. Now...
View ArticleRemembering Curtis Pitts
Some losses are extremely hard to accept I had just parked in front of my insurance agent’s office and was cursing myself for forgetting to bring the premium check when it hit me. It was as if someone...
View ArticleAvgas Alternatives
Is there a solution to skyrocketing fuel prices? I did something incredibly stupid the other day. My fuel is on an open account, and the price is always buried in a seldom-seen monthly statement. So, I...
View ArticleObituary For My Friend
You don’t know true sorrow until you lose a dogIt was early on the first day of the EAA Northwest Regional Fly-In at Arlington, Wash., and Marlene called me at the exhibit. She sounded strange, so I...
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Breaking In A New One
New engines, like new friends, take a little while to get to knowAs I’m writing this, a shuttle bus is taking me a hundred miles north to meet a new friend (I hope): the freshly overhauled Lyc...
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