 | 
 | Wednesday evening, September 19, 2001
Flying the Avian is a wonderful experience. My friend Xavier Meal from France took this great picture, which will appear in a French magazine soon.
I'm getting excited about the chance to continue the trip after the flight restrictions are lifted on small airplanes, which will hopefully be today or tomorrow. We are presently hoping to make it to Pecos and El Paso on Friday, Arizona on Saturday and on in to California on Sunday. Be sure to check the today's earlier postings for some interesting photos and a story about Carlsbad Caverns.
Flying the trip is truly the most spectacular of all. There is nothing
quite like the first pop of the engine as it rumbles to life in the early
a.m. Usually a short taxi to the runway and then the throttle wide open as
the little bi-plane climbs quickly, but gently into the air. That first
mornings glimpse of the rising sun and incredible expanse of this amazing
country is indescribable.
The day by day change in terrain makes me realize what an honor and
privilege it is to be a citizen of this great country. From New York's
Hudson River which I crossed immediately out of Rye, N.Y., through the green
tree covered Allegheny's to the sharp contrast of Indiana and Iowa which
presented a flat farm dotted landscape to the deserts of Texas and New
Mexico filled with farms and oil rigs the trip changes by the hour.
Despite sometimes rough air, I try to stay low to the ground in remote areas (200-500 ft.) in order to be able to take in all of the sights up close. In New Mexico, farmers were busy on tractors plowing their fields and occasionally, I would swoop down for a fly-by which many times would bring them out of their tractors, hat in hand waving and, I am sure smiling as I was!
Not to say that the entire flight is a "cake walk" because it isn't, many
times I have failed to dress with adequate layers and spend part of the time
wishing I had my leather flying jacket which I packed securely in the
baggage compartment or, I find that I haven't folded my charts properly and
spend time agonizingly trying to refold them while protecting them from the
slip stream that wants to carry them from the cockpit.
Then of course there is the endless search of pockets, etc. for lip balm
which evaporates quickly in the brisk air of the open cockpit, but each and
everyone of these small dilemmas make the journey what it is.......a
wonderful, once in a lifetime adventure that could never, ever be
duplicated.
[Return back to log archive list] | |
|
