Twenty years ago today, I bought an airplane.  The first picture I ever captured of N21481, taken at Three Rivers, Dr. Haines Municipal Airport (KHAI) on 13 March 2004, the day after I flew her home from Guthrie, OK. My first official act as an aircraft owner was cold calling Dad. "Hi Dad! I'm in Oklahoma and I just bought an airplane." It was a cocky way to blindside him with new information, but I had just conquered Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as an early 30-something and needed to crow about it. After all, I was now the proud master of a "private aircraft", a beautiful, gleami ..read more

Stir Crazy In aviation safety circles, a mental condition colloquially known as "get-there-itis" characterizes a pilot so mission focused, so determined to reach a destination, that they make unsafe decisions. While accidents might result from dangerous weather, poor fuel management, or hastily overlooked maintenance issues, an underlying root cause may be a pilot falling prey to these situations due to a laser focus on completing the mission in spite of circumstances that make flying unwise. More often than not, winter flying in Upstate New York is contingent on the ceiling. When the Lake O ..read more

Date Aircraft Route of Flight Time (hrs) Total (hrs) 03 Feb 2024 N21481 SDC (Sodus, NY) - ART (Watertown, NY) - SDC 1.9 2775.9 After weeks of low, dreary ceilings, I was able to escape and fly along the Lake Ontario shoreline. This is a case where pictures communicate better than words ..read more

Gratitude For over a decade, I have returned to my logbook at the end of each year and selected some prized images that I think best represent the preceding twelve months. Every time I do, I cannot help but feel immense gratitude. I am struck by all the remarkable things I have had the privilege to experience as an outcome of holding a pilot certificate. I am thankful for pioneering aviators who made this all possible, for a career that allows me to fund it, for flight instructors who taught me their skills, for family that tolerates my fascination, and for friends who eagerly join each advent ..read more

Where's Waldo Slatington? "Cherokee Four Eight One, Allentown Approach, altimeter 30.48, remain at or above 3,500 feet." My eyes moved between the sectional chart and the living map draped across the outside world as I descended toward Slatington, PA. Was the airport before or after that ridge? It is a common mental exercise required when descending toward an unfamiliar airport in Pennsylvania. Leveling at 3,500, I finally spotted the airport through the Lehigh Gap, the runway tucked intimately along the west bank of the Lehigh River. Allentown Approach thoughtfully held me high to cle ..read more

Date Aircraft Route of Flight Time (hrs) Total (hrs) 25 Nov 2023 N21481 SDC (Sodus, NY) - AQW (North Adams, MA) - SDC 3.8 2760.3 In a year of "big missions", ad hoc flights for food have been relatively rare, so I was excited to participate in a quickly planned flight to the Harriman and West Airport in North Adams, MA for lunch at the always-excellent Trail House Kitchen. I was joined by Scott, birthday girl Kim, and George in Eight Five X-Ray. For both Scott and I, it was an opportunity to get back into the cockpit and fly for the simple sake of flying. Neither of us expected anyth ..read more

"Indio and Other Desert Cities" Eastbound on I-10, I passed a sign that I had not seen since 1997. It read, “Indio and other desert cities.” Back in 1997, I was crammed into a rental car with three other graduate students and our advisor driving from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, CA to present at the 45th American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics. It was my first presentation at a scientific conference, my first trip to California, and my first time in the desert. Everything seemed entirely foreign and, for me, that novelty was epitomized by ..read more

Where Ichabod Crane Fears to Venture 1790: A lone gaunt figure journeys home after nightfall as embrittled autumn leaves swirl and skitter across the country road. He is startled by the sudden appearance of a terrifying cloaked figure astride a demonic horse, a jack-o'-lantern perched on the rider's shoulders in place of a head. Inspired by local legend, he believes the horseman to be the ghost of a Hessian mercenary decapitated by canon fire during the Revolutionary War, a restless spirit that rides forth from the Old Dutch Church cemetery each night in search of his lost head. Urging his ca ..read more

Departure from the Canada Aviation and Space Museum At 2:30 pm, I notified museum staff that I needed to return to my airplane. I was escorted outside by a docent who was supposed to have led the 2:30 pm Reserve Hangar tour, but was available because no one signed up for it. Yes, I missed an opportunity for a one on one tour! But I also needed to be airborne at 3:00 pm or else amend my flight plan and arrival time with US Customs in Ogdensville, NY. As we walked outside, she spotted the Warrior. "Is that a Piper?" She disclosed that she took flight lessons when she was younger, but only had ..read more

"The air was our element, the sky our battlefield. The majesty of the heavens, while it dwarfed us, gave us, I think, a spirit unknown to studier men who fought on earth. Nobility surrounded us. We moved like spirits in an airy loom, where wind and cloud and light wove day and night long the endless fabric of the changing sky...From this exalted eminence we surveyed the earth--an earth grown suddenly remote and insignificant, so vast and overpowering was the dominion of the sky." -- Cecil Lewis, Sagittarius Rising, 1936 Canada's National Aviation Museum Main entrance, Canada Aviation ..read more