We have had a fun journey exploring personal minimums through the wisdom of over a dozen pilots in the past few months. I hope that you enjoy this final installment and apply the concepts to your flying.  I am thrilled to be presenting a seminar on the content for the Los Angeles 99s virtually on Wednesday June 2nd, and in person for AOPA at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh on Thursday July 29th. My goal in writing this series is that as PIC you do everything in the airplane intentionally and with forethought. So here we go.  In the past few months, we began our journey into the mindset needed ..read more

As  usual  Mother Nature gave me some real-world experience which challenged my own personal minimums on a recent flight.   I head to the Pacific Northwest monthly for business. Having my own personal time machine has allowed me to realize the dream of living and working in two very different states. Planning for a 4.5-hour trip over some beautiful but inhospitable terrain is a challenge.  With no de-icing or anti-icing systems on my vintage Mooney, weather can be a friend or foe.  For this trip 30-35 kt headwinds were forecast at my “normal” altitude of 10500-125 ..read more

Outward looking mastery vs. inward looking precision: musings about the differences between Commercial and Instrument flight In 2017 I decided it was the year to complete my long started, then stopped, then re-started process of attaining my instrument rating.  I chronicled the process in Gotta get that Rating.  2020 dawned with promise of the commercial certificate and we all know what happened to those promises.  Yet on July 5th 2020 I passed my commercial check ride in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, where I learned to fly some 18 years ago. Inward focused precision I rec ..read more

Two steps forward and one step back. In early January I took the written exam for the Commercial certificate. I scored a healthy 86% and was anxious to get in the airplane to learn and master the Commercial maneuvers with the goal of a check ride by my birthday at the end of March. We all know what happened next. As pilots we have had to exhibit some patience in order to try to tamp down the outbreak of the Corona virus. I would like to give a big shout out to my instructors, Mike Jesch [primary] and Christopher Keran [night] and my DPE Dave Koebel. We all had to exhibit patience, pivot and pe ..read more

2020 has certainly been interesting thus far. I remember sitting down to create my calendar of events in December 2019 for the coming year of aviation events looking forward to traveling monthly. When AOPA, EAA and SNF made the tough choices to forgo their annual events to help keep us safe and reduce exposure to COVID-19, my delete button has been smoking from overuse. Social Flight Live one of the many online offerings available now In March and April I was heartened to see that thought leaders, local and state associations, and national groups began to make online content available, in mo ..read more

On Cinco de Mayo I had the pleasure of sharing the “screen” with Julie Clark, Martha King and Pia Bergqvist on Social Flight Live as we each talked about our aviation careers. As we were preparing for the show I found it interesting that we all had very different entrées into aviation. Three of us were children of pilots and one sort of stumbled into aviation by happy coincidence. After the show, [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MWq3crzMMs&t=11s ] I thought about the old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover, you might miss out on an amazing story.” I wonder if we should re-think our ..read more

This month I wanted to focus on mentoring. I think we might need to come up with a new rating for mentorship. Seriously though, take a moment and think about who mentored you in life. It doesn’t need to be an aviation mentor. Recall what this man or woman offered to you as a guide. Let’s face facts: We need more pilots coming up the ranks. One way to do this is to be an example to all, young or older, that want to learn to fly or advance to the next level. Here are some concrete things to do to achieve your next rating: “Great Mentor.” Remember:  Mentor is a noun and a verb. I was a lucky girl ..read more