Flight Training - March 2015 - 26

FLYING CARPET

By Greg Brown

EMILY, Libby, and Alan Herring at Glendale
Airport, Arizona.

FUN FLIGHT

SHARPENING SKILLS FOR FAMILY TRAVEL

I

missed out on a bunch of flying this weekend," lamented my
neighbor, Alan Herring, over dinner. Alan is a dairy-cattle
veterinarian and fellow pilot. He owns a Cessna 170 taildragger
and a Turbo 182. He and his wife, Jeanie, live near Phoenix, and
commute on weekends to their vacation home here in Flagstaff. He'd
just finished describing how his family names all their vehicles. The
Skylane goes by Wanda, and the 170 is called Willy.
"Our daughter Emily is down in Tucson
attending the archrival Arizona State
University-University of Arizona football
game," Alan explained. "Her sister Libby
is at home west of Phoenix. They're coming to Flagstaff tomorrow to join us for
one night. The plan was for Jeanie and
me to fly up here in Wanda yesterday.
The girls were to rendezvous tomorrow
morning at Glendale Airport, where I'd
pick them up. Then we'd all fly home
together on Sunday. Sounds crazy for just
one night, but we always have a good time
together and the girls have shopping in
mind. But when we got ready to fly here
yesterday, Wanda's battery was dead, and
it was too late to address it."
I asked about the girls' contingency

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travel plan. Emily would now drive from
Tucson to Tempe in the morning. Libby
would come from the west valley to meet
her, and they'd continue to Flagstaff
together. Returning home Sunday, they'd
detour to retrieve the extra car.
"That's complicated for one night, and
quite a drive," I observed. "Why don't
you and I just pick up Libby and Emily
at Glendale Airport in the Flying Carpet
tomorrow? Then they could ride home
with you and Jeanie Sunday without leaving cars all over the place."
Alan and Jeanie expressed surprise.
"Oh, we couldn't ask you to do that,"
Alan said.
"Why not?" I asked. "That would give
the girls more time to enjoy their brief

visit. And you'd get an extra couple hours
of family time traveling home together
instead of driving separately. Besides, it's
always fun seeing Emily and Libby-and
what more productive excuse could I find
to enjoy a morning's flying?"
After takeoff from Flagstaff the next
morning, Alan and I swapped flying
stories. Alan told of flying Wanda on long
cross-countries from Arizona to Texas,
and to his childhood home in Georgia.
But then he described a bad-landing
experience that had softened his piloting
confidence and will.
"At least you were alone on your
botched landing," I observed. "Last time
I bounced a landing I had first-time passengers aboard!" We laughed, but Alan
admitted he'd not flown much following
that experience.
"Two years ago when I was flying a
lot, I would have found a way to solve
Thursday's battery problem," he said.
"But now that I'm not flying enough, I
was all too willing to let it go and drive
instead." I'd wondered why Alan didn't fly
his airplanes to Flagstaff more often, so
this was revealing.
My friend talked of earning more ratings to enhance his skills, first knocking
off the instrument rating he'd started but
never quite finished years ago.
"It's not easy flying all the way to
Georgia VFR," he observed. "And I'd sure
love instrument qualifications to penetrate the marine layer flying in and
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