Adventure Flying

Flying in Canada is just different enough from flying in the U.S. to make it a learning experience, and similar enough to make it comfortable. Canada’s aviation heritage is like a vein whose branches nourish virtually every facet of the diverse country’s social, business and even political life. To a large degree, aviation built Canada, […]

Last spring, clutching a free ticket on Southwest that was about to expire and harboring an intense desire to escape reality for a while, I journeyed to Seattle for a mini-vacation devoted to nothing except looking at airplanes and eating foods that were bad for me. I had a great time and would encourage you […]

Pilots who love to ski often daydream about combining their passions. What could bemore alluring than flying to a fantastic ski resort within minutes of an airport? Stopdreaming and start planning because it is a reality and well within your range. However,before reading on, you must promise not to tell everyone at your home base […]

Sometimes flying is its own reward. Youcatch the last rays of a beautiful sunset as you turn final, you calculate the fuel burnfor your trip down to the tenth of a gallon, or you grease it on at the end of your firstflight with your new in-laws. Every time we fly we usually come away […]

The 16th Annual Piper Fly-in, known as “Sentimental Journey,” took place last week at the birthplace of thousands of Piper aircraft — Lock Haven, Pa. In spite of off-and-on rain throughout the four-day event, over 135 planes managed to arrive at the W.T. Piper Memorial Airport (LHV) from June 20-23, while another 500 or so […]

Originations Jiggs Landing Fishing Camp, Braden River, Manatee County, Florida Last summer, I took one of the most fascinating, challenging and rewarding trips of my lifetime: a round-trip flight from Florida to Vermont and back in my 1973 Cessna 172M. “So what?” you ask; people do that all the time. Well, the difference is that […]

Fantasy camps are hot. They started with “Dude Ranches,” places where the city-born could ride the prairies with a broad Stetson on their noggins and a whiff of sweaty horse in their nostrils. From that simple Western beginning, fantasy camps have branched out into dozens of fields. You can now indulge your dreams of being […]

Let’s get one thing straight right off. Texas is a big state. Big. The state motto is “Everything Is Bigger in Texas” and folks there are dead serious when they say it. Another motto is “Don’t Mess With Texas.” They mean that, too. I spent the longest two years of my life one day driving […]

A couple of years ago one of my clients flew throughoutAustralia on something called the GOANA air safari andhas been raving about it ever since. So in April of the year 2000 when I got theopportunity to go on the same trip, I jumped at the chance. When I mentioned that I was goingto do […]

NorthAmerican SNJ-5 “Bonnie Sue” in Marine markings. Owned by Dan Caldaralefrom Red Lion airport, N.J. Back tothumbnails