Bravo Zulu Aviation

We’ve all looked to the sky and strained our necks towards the distant drone of an airplane. Somehow things change once you’ve actually been behind the controls of one. Despite barely catching a glimpse of a plane cruising by at some unknown altitude, you can’t help but wonder the details of the journey, the pilot, the airplane itself. Thinking back through my childhood, I think that I’ve always had an interest in flight. I’ve certainly had an incessant urge to travel and experience the natural world, and an airplane can certainly make that task more efficient. Back in the good ol’ days of low security airline travel, I always made the trip to the cockpit before, during, and after the flight.

My first interaction with a general aviation pilot was with an instructor I had on an outdoor course I took. I spent three weeks with ‘Sparky’ leaning how to paddle a whitewater canoe in Utah. I left that trip with the phonetic alphabet in my journal, some great stories and a pledge try try my hand at aviation some day.

That time didn’t come until I met my wife, and her father. He took me flying in an AirCam he had built. My first experience at the controls of a small plane was in the open cockpit of this unique homebuilt twin-engine airplane. We took off from Martin State Airport in Baltimore, MD and flew directly across the Chesapeake Bay. Amazing! We spent a couple of hours following the closer details of the eastern shore at the low altitudes this plane was designed for. The hook was set. This was not my first time in a small airplane, but it was certainly this experience that resulted in the beginning of my primary flight training. I had before that day spent a little time in a twin otter, a caravan, and a couple of 182’s. I had never landed in one though, all of those flights ended when I jumped out at 14k’ and 11k’ respectively. Even while I tried my hand at skydiving, my focus was always on what the pilot was doing on the way up, never the quickly approaching jump.

After that day in Maryland, I began to look at airplanes a little differently and was signed up for an introductory flight lesson a few short months later.

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