Lessons Learned

Memorable excursion to the Big Apple represents the best of airplane ownership and fatherhood.

Taking an impromptu media excursion with pilot Bob Hoover was a ‘thrill of a lifetime.’

If you’re like me, at some point in your pilot career, you may have asked yourself this: “Do I really need a weather briefing? The TAFs look like things will probably be fine. I’m not going that far. I’ll just get while the gettin’ is good, and I’ll be there before any bad weather moves […]

Ray Andrews, my flight instructor, turned to me and asked, “So, you think you’re ready to solo in front of your friends?” After my half-hour flight lesson of three takeoffs and landings, with my childhood friends Larry Leonard and Michael Rafferty watching from alongside the grassy airstrip, I was surprised by his question. I had […]

It is rumored that the town of Telluride, Colorado, got its name in the 1800s from the phrase “to hell you ride,” alluding to the treacherous journey required to reach the remote mountain destination by horseback. When flying into this high-altitude airport, the name is as fitting now as it was then. Situated at a […]

By the summer of 1983, I had finished my junior year of ROTC, and our old neighborhood gang was reunited again. Larry Leonard and I roomed together our college freshman year at the Castilian dorm, where I met my future wife, Karin. Before starting our senior year, Larry and I moved into the same Austin […]

By Wayne Pinger I dipped the fuel tanks with my home-calibrated doweling, a dipstick gas gauge I made and strategically notched at 9 and 18 gallons, or average one and two hours of flight. I cross-drilled it and glued a smaller dowel through to form a T to avoid dropping it in the tank. Still, […]

I barely survived my first solo flight but learned lessons that lasted a lifetime.

Emergency action…with a prisoner on board.

A pilot learns valuable lessons when he realizes he has an unexpected passenger on the plane.