Beyond the Pages

January 11, 2026

Welcome to your new weekly newsletter and personal blog from Plane + Pilot. This is a space for aviation adventure, relatable pilot life, and “fresh off the press” insider info gathered from the conversations and stories that fill my work week.

As the editor in chief of this publication and an active private pilot, I eat, sleep, and breathe GA. I’m incredibly thankful for that. After all, they say if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. While I can’t exactly say my days are stress-free, this is a career I still pinch myself over every single day.

Through the trials, tribulations, and pure joy of flight, I have absorbed a lifetime of lessons in just the past six months of leading this magazine. To those of you who have stuck with Plane + Pilot over the years, and for giving a “hot shot” 26-year-old EIC a fighting chance, thank you. Your support for our recent rebrand has been felt deeply across our entire organization at Firecrown Media.

Speaking of lessons learned, it is currently 10 p.m. on a Friday evening, and I am fresh out of an instrument lesson. It was supposed to be a four-hour marathon—a two-hour oral stage check followed by a two-hour flight.

Unfortunately, we never made it to the runway.

Despite three days of cramming with 250 note cards, I let the stage check get the better of me. Between the pressure of an impending check ride, a packed work calendar, and spending more time flying than hitting the books, it seems my private pilot knowledge was tucked a little further back in my brain than I realized. After eight years of not thinking about the mechanical minutiae of the pitot-static system, I’m relearning topics that 18-year-old me knew by heart. 

My bookwork might be rusty, but my spirit is fierce. If the past two years have taught me anything, it’s that we are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. Pilots possess a can-do spirit that is rare these days, and right now, I’m clinging to that tenacity for dear life.

With epic adventures on the horizon for Plane + Pilot, including a flight and three-day, action-packed adventure to Big Bend National Park, an impending IFR check ride (and all that goes with that), and even a trip to CubCrafters headquarters, there is a lot to unpack in a short period of time. I’m thrilled to bring y’all along for the ride. 

Look for this blog to hit your inbox every Sunday night. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. My inbox is always open at cayla.mcleod@firecrown.com.