Moorhead, Minnesota.

First, a quick note: If everything went as planned, last week, we were on an aircraft traveling to a part of the world where Internet access would not be guaranteed. If I am slow to respond to comments, it’s due to my lack of connectivity. More on that journey in the months to come.

On to the topic of this post. This summer, I finalized my decision to no longer remain current with my pilot credentials. In June, my medical expired, and though I still qualify to have it renewed, I recognize that I am slowing down in my reflexes. I’m finding I have less time to maintain my skills in actual practice than before. The lack of recurrent training and a deteriorating skillset is a recipe for an accident waiting to happen. It’s time to open a new chapter in my life. But that’s not what this story is about.

The opening photo is a memory of my aviation career in Civil Air Patrol. If I wasn’t flying the aircraft, I was in the rear seat acting as an aviation photographer. One of our aircraft commonly has a mirror attached to the wing strut. As we were flying to a photography assignment one day, I noticed my reflection in the mirror and decided it would make an unusual selfie.

This story, though, is about looking forward, not looking back. I’d purchased 10 hours of block time, and with my decision to only fly with instructors, I had a small balance left in the account, enough for about two hours of flight time. When my grandson Owen’s 14th birthday rolled around, I asked if he would like some introductory flight lessons. He’s not old enough yet to begin formal flight training, but a couple of one-hour lessons to introduce him to basic flying skills might be fun for him, and for his first flight, I would get to ride in the back seat to document the occasion.

As is typical, especially on windy days like this, the instructor would take off and land. Once we were airborne, Ryan, his instructor, turned the controls over to the potential young pilot, and we headed to a practice area to learn basic maneuvers.

As necessary, Ryan would point to the tachometer to set the throttle to a certain RPM or to demonstrate the operation of the turn and bank indicator, for example. At one point, Ryan even pointed out that for pilots who fly single-engine aircraft, it’s essential to keep an eye on good places to land in case of an engine failure. Ryan set the engine to idle and asked Owen where he might land. Owen quickly selected a rural road below us, and we turned toward the road below. After a short description of procedures, Ryan let Owen throttle back up to stop our descent.

As Owen got used to using the yoke and rudder for basic maneuvers, Ryan asked if Owen would like to do something fun. With Owen’s approval, Ryan talked him through the procedure of doing a modified steep turn at 30 degrees of bank. Private pilots must be able to complete 360-degree turns to the left and right at 45 degrees of bank with no more than plus or minus 100 feet change in altitude. In routine flight, turns are executed at 15 degrees of bank. Ryan walked Owen through the procedures to introduce the concept of the 30-degree bank with less emphasis on precision. Owen completed turns in both directions.

Then Ryan demonstrated a 45-degree steep turn. As we rotated around, Ryan asked Owen to lift his feet off the floor. When Owen did, Ryan asked Owen if his legs felt heavy. Owen said they did, and Ryan commented that a 45-degree turn presents a load of 1.5 G. When asked if he knows what 1.5 G represents, Owen responded that it’s one and a half times the weight of gravity. Apparently, Owen is paying attention in science class. >grin<

Ryan kept the lesson light and fun. He even took a moment while Owen flew to take a quick selfie and sent it to me after our lesson. I was completely unaware as I was busy capturing some video in the back seat. Scroll down for a video. My theme tacks a gap between text and video.

I’m not a videographer, rarely recording videos, but this occasion seemed like a good reason to try the Nikon Z7 II mirrorless video capabilities. It would have been interesting to have the audio from our headsets fed into the camera, but that was more prep than I could accomplish. The audio I captured was engine noise that completely overpowered the conversation between Ryan and Owen.

When I got home, I looked to see what tool I might have on my Windows machine for editing video to string the clips together. I found Clipchamp, Microsoft’s free online editor, and discovered its easy use. I could strip the audio and replace it with a royalty-free music track to accompany the video. It took me very little time to generate the three-minute video. The ride was bumpy, so the video wasn’t steady. That doesn’t explain my lack of steadiness when we were on the ground, and I was outside the plane while they taxied in front of me. >grin< All in all, I might capture more videos.

At this point, it’s too soon for Owen to start flight training in earnest. He can’t get a license before he’s 16, and he has many expensive hours of training ahead if he decides to make a career of it. Life is all about options, and I am happy to have given Owen the chance to see whether an aviation career is something he might like to pursue.

Credit where credit is due. Ryan Anderson is a flight instructor at KJKJ, the airport in Moorhead, Minnesota. He’s helped me get current for the summer flying seasons after our winter travels and provided a rental aircraft whenever Lynn and I decided to take to the sky for the typical $100 hamburger (now $500, it seems.) If you are in or near the Fargo-Moorhead area, consider https://learntoflyfar.com/ and Ryan for plane rental and instruction. (Note: I got no compensation for this recommendation.)

John Steiner