AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2022 - 47

about airplanes, nothing about flying, and
nothing about the regulations. And to make
it just a little worse, as if it could be, we had
no passion for getting into the air. At ages
66 and 67 respectively, my wife and I could
not have cared less about flying. Our plan
was to get our certificates and an appropriate
airplane and hire a pilot to fly with us
up to Breckenridge every three weeks or so.
Seemed like a good plan to us at the time.
We signed up for lessons at a local flight
school and then went online to find an airplane.
Remember, we still had zero passion
for flying. We did our discovery flight and
about 10 more hours in the airplane and still
could not have cared less. We were in bed
one night and talked about what the heck
had we gotten ourselves into. Maybe we had
are told to " follow our passion, " yet most
young people have no idea what that even
is. They get a degree from college and yet
still have no idea what kind of job or life
they want. She quoted studies that said
passions yield very mixed results for
actions. Passions die quickly and then so
do the actions that followed that passion.
Her advice was to flip this philosophy
180 degrees. When actions turn into passions,
the effects are orders of magnitude
longer lasting and generate much more
happiness. My wife and I can certainly
attest to this. We started with zero passion
but lots of intentions and actions.
After 70 hours in the beat-up old Piper
Warrior, we are passionate about our flying.
We love climbing into that dinky little
We rose to the challenge, aced our knowledge tests,
and, literally, every day tell each other that we feel
our brains work better than they did six months ago.
made a big mistake and should cut bait right
now. But, we decided, in for a penny, in for a
pound, and, not being quitters, we signed up
for many more weeks of training.
I think our biggest surprise was that
learning to fly was a whole lot easier than
learning about flying and the entire new language
that would be necessary to carry out
this grand plan. We are both doctors, a dentist
and a veterinarian, so while we might
not be the sharpest tacks in the box, we are
certainly not the dullest. Going through the
300-plus (or at least it feels like that) videos
from John and Martha King-twice-was a
real challenge. But the good news is, we rose
to the challenge, aced our knowledge tests,
and, literally, every day tell each other that
we feel our brains work better than they
did six months ago. We forced our minds
into a learning mode, and they responded.
Our neural networks have expanded, and
our mental acuity has sharpened. This may
rate higher than the flying. It is a miraculous
experience.
Now about the passion part. I recently
heard a TED Talk and the speaker said
most of us approach life all wrong. We
airplane and sending it into the sky. We
cannot wait until our Saratoga is delivered
and we get to send it into the sky.
And now, we are passionate about going
straight into IFR, mountain, and spin
training. This airplane no longer represents
a fast bus ticket to Colorado but
rather an adventure into $100 hamburgers
and exploring every remote corner of
this country. I hope that everyone who has
this wild idea to fly but says to themselves,
I am too old, I am too busy, I don't want to
go back to school, and I just don't know if
I have the passion for it, understands that
it is a crazy adventure worth every dime
and hour spent chasing it.
There is a saying that I will paraphrase,
" You can go through life and end it with a
body that you have carefully preserved and
cared for, or you can slide into home beaten
and battered with a beer in one hand, chocolate
in the other yelling, Woohoo, what a
ride. " We have chosen the latter and it continues
to be one heck of ride. Ken Karger's
checkride was scheduled for early January
2022; Mauri Karger received her private
pilot certificate in late December.
NEWS /
NXCub wins FAA
approval
CUBCR A F T E R S H A S R E CE I V E D FAA
approval to add nosewheel XCubs to its
list of factory-built aircraft. The company
based in Yakima, Washington, won FAA
approval of its two-seat, 180-horsepower
XCub in 2016 after a quiet, multiyear certification
process. Since then, it has added
the Garmin G3X primary flight display/
multifunction display to its type certificate
as well as straight and amphibious
floats, and a 210-horsepower Lycoming
IO-390 engine.
CubCrafters added a nosewheel option
more than a year ago and called the revised
version the " NXCub. " The NXCubs the
company has delivered to date have been
registered in the experimental category.
Now, CubCrafters can build and sell them
as fully FAA-certified aircraft.
Having a nosewheel, FAA-certified
airplane has been part of CubCrafters'
plan for the XCub since its inception. The
company's goals were to increase access to
backcountry flying among the estimated 85
percent of U.S. pilots who don't have a tailwheel
endorsement-and to sell fleets of
the specialized airplanes to government
agencies and other organizations that prefer
nosewheels for operational safety and
insurability.
No government agencies have made
fleet purchases yet-but some are in
the process of evaluating the NXCub.
-Dave Hirschman
AOPA PILOT / February 2022
47
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2022

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