Springbank, Alberta
Piloting a small aircraft has been like wearing a cape. It has allowed me to defy gravity, to see things from the perspective of birds (and gods), to experience incredible speed, and the exhilaration of soaring at unusual attitudes. I have lived in a dimension reserved for few.
The danger inherent in piloting a light aircraft has the counterintuitive effect of invincibility.
But my preferred mode of transportation is heading for Texas and a new life. After 28 years, 1625 hours, and 225,000 nautical miles, I have decided that I have done everything and been everywhere I want in a small plane, so some lucky Texan now owns my cape.
Observing C-GSXS from this angle is a bitter-sweet experience.
Aviation has been a big part of my life since 1978, when I made my first solo flight. I couldn’t afford a plane (or the gas to put in it) in the 1980s and early ‘90s, so I was grounded for several years. In 1996 I renewed my pilot’s licence and bought an old Cessna182 (C-GROC).
A brand new C182 showed up in 2000.
Bear and the kids were regular passengers in the early years, and I have had the great privilege of many friends “slipping the surly bonds of earth” with me.
Gervais Goodman served as both co-pilot and photographer on this flight near Abraham Lake in 2018.
Aviation has been part of Marshall’s life too. He took his first ride with me in a trainer aircraft in 1997 and went on to fly commercially in 2014.
Marshall and Deanna got engaged in the air in 2019.
I flew in Australia in 2002, and Botswana in 2023.
The only photo I have of flying in Australia is this sorry shot taken from a C172, over the Great Barrier Reef.
In Chitabe, Botswana we had to chase a pack of wild dogs off the runway before we could take off.
There are several people I would have liked to have taken for “One More Ride”, and I never got to Yellowknife or Newfoundland, but C-GSXS has taken me more places, physically and metaphorically, than most people dare to dream. It is time for new adventures.
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Me and my girls, on Departure Day.
I’m only keeping one.
Aviation has been my superpower. Walking away from an empty hangar today feels like I am carrying a heavy load of …
… Kryptonite.
Click the link for a musical aviation tutorial.
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