Onwards and Upwards

When I get interested in something, other things tend to fall by the wayside. Such is the fate of this blog. Let's do a recent quick review.

Having purchased the Kitfox, having planned poorly for a retirement income, I found myself with aircraft bills and not quite enough cash. My friend Mark Reed, my aviation mentor, once remarked "Jeremy, you're never going to get any sympathy if your problems revolve around how you're going to pay for repairs to your airplane......" and he was of course right.

My lovely bride Terry Donison retired, so her income wasn't going to pay for the airplane, and I didn't want to get back to full time work, so I wandered into the local Home Depot and Bob's your Uncle I was an associate. Not an employee mind, an associate. I thought I'd trade off low wages for low stress. Another poor judgement on my part. However, on balance, it's been OK. The aircraft repairs happened, the VISA bills mounted and then declined somewhat, and in the meantime I've gotten to fly this wonderful bird.

But the best news is that Terry's now a pilot-in-training, having recently soloed in a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, which is a technologically advanced trainer in the light sport category.

She's amazingly obstinate. She had a terrible initial training experience but she's overcome that through persistence and writing large checks all summer. Winter having set in, her training is probably in stasis until spring, but I'm convinced she'll see it through. And once you've soloed you can consider yourself to be a pilot and the rest is just government paperwork and paying attention.

And we've done a bit of travelling, primarily to the National Air Races at Reno/Stead Airport in September. SO COOL! It's like aviation heaven, not to be missed, and we'll be going back.

 Lt. Colonel Robert Friend, one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen. Flirting madly with Terry, who was doing the same. A real privilege to meet him and spend a few moments.