Adventure Flying

Tehachapi, California: You Gotta Be Dedicated … or a Little Nuts It’s winter, late January. There’s snow on the ground atTehachapi, California. The wind is blowing like crazy. And thetwo of us were about to camp out in an unheated hangar. All ofthis to save money so we could fly sailplanes. The operator ofthe glider […]

We landed in Oshkosh in mid-afternoon five days before the official opening of the convention in what appeared to be a sleepy, under-utilized mid-western airport. The rains that had plagued the Midwest all spring and summer affected central Wisconsin as well. The grass taxiways used during the convention were soft and several of the traditional […]

I just got back from a very enjoyable flying vacation trip toMexico with my wife and another couple. I flew my Cessna 210from Dallas to the beautiful city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.After nearly a week in PV, we moved up the coast and over intoBaja. We departed on November 10, 1994 with the expectation ofspending […]

I think many of us in the Northeast are looking for relativelyshort trips that can be flown in three hours or less — and TangierIsland neatly fits that description. US Sprint’s TV commercials in spring of ’95 gave tons of freepublicity to Tangier Island, an isolated fishing community inthe middle of Chesapeake Bay. The commercial […]

Monday, August 21st: SMX-BFI A fter topping the tanks of my trusty Cessna 310and packing it with lots of charts, coats, luggage, cameras, and survivalgear, I take off with my brother-in-law Joel for a long-anticipated flyingvacation trip to Alaska. It’s the first time for both of us, and somethingI’ve dreamed about doing for 20 years. […]

General aviation pilots tend to shy away from flying into majormetropolitan airports, either because of traffic density or becauseof worries about ruinous landing and parking fees. Yet many bigmetro airports are surprisingly GA friendly and at the top ofmy list is Washington National. National is one of a handful of busy big-city airports that tracesits […]

SUCCESS FOUR FLIGHTS THURSDAYMORNING ALL AGAINST TWENTY ONE MILE WIND STARTED FROM LEVEL WITHENGINE POWER ALONE AVERAGE SPEED THROUGH AIR THIRTY ONE MILESLONGEST 59 SECONDS INFORM PRESS HOME CHRISTMAS    ORVILLE WRIGHT,   by telegram The four hills of Kill Devilare dunes near the village of Kitty Hawk, on that long thin spitof yellow sand known as the […]

“The West Coast”, particularly if you are from eastof the Mississippi, usually means California. We should not forgetthat the “left” coast also includes Oregon and Washington.The diversity of terrain and climate that can be found in andamong these three states never ceases to amaze me as I fly overdeserts, forests, mountains and finally the beaches […]