Fargo, North Dakota.

A couple of years ago, an acquaintance on Facebook in one of the Nikon photography groups and I started chatting. Turned out he would be on a road trip and passing through Fargo. We decided to meet at a local eatery and get acquainted. I will start out by saying that I am a big fan of his photography. You can view his work on his website here. In the two years since, we’ve visited again in his home city of Highlands Ranch, Colorado and again in Fargo. As you might imagine, when we get together, it’s a foregone conclusion that we are going to be going somewhere to take photos. In the photo above, Fred is taking a stroll across the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park in Minnesota.

Well it turns out that photography isn’t our only interest in common. Having lived for a time in Alaska, Fred was once a current and capable private pilot. After Fred left our largest state, he let his pilot currency lapse and it had been some 25 years or so since he last piloted an airplane. He speculated to me that maybe there might be an opportunity to get behind the controls of an airplane again. Of course, I would be only too willing to make that happen. However, my only access to aircraft is through Civil Air Patrol, and since Fred is not a CAP member, that avenue would be unavailable to us.

Having been a part-owner in an aircraft since the late 1990s, and having sold my share, I was no longer qualified to rent an aircraft from the local agency. Maybe, I suggested, we could work out an arrangement where Fred could get some flight time with an instructor and I could get a rental checkout. After chatting with one of the instructors, it worked out that we could make something like that happen, but due to time constraints, they would be two separate flights on two separate days. Since Fred would only be around for a few days, we elected to get his refresher flight done first. I would not be able to be Pilot in Command of a rental until I completed my checkout so we showed up at the Jet Center in Fargo and scheduled a “City Tour” with Assistant Chief Flight Instructor, Steve Schlangen. Steve would let Fred do the flying and we would spend about 45 minutes or so flying around the city.

I took a position in the back seat behind the instructor so that I could capture some views of the city. Moments after takeoff with Fred at the controls, we passed by the new FedEx station at Fargo’s Hector International Airport. As we made a round robin excursion west, then south, back to the east and then north again, Fred renewed his skills and reaffirmed that flying a plane is like riding a bike. You never really forget how it works. Even though the plane we were flying is a late model Cessna 172, with all the bells and whistles of an electronic “glass” cockpit, Fred had no trouble adjusting to computer screens instead of round gauges.

After a careful pre-flight, we boarded the Cessna and soon, with permission from the Fargo Tower Controller, we were rolling down the runway, Fred at the controls. I could tell Fred was enjoying the flight, though I suspect he had some “first time in a long time” jitters. If he did, he didn’t show it. He kept his “eyes outside”, pilot-speak for keeping a sharp lookout for other aircraft, an important consideration in busy airspace these days. As I mentioned in last week’s Travel Tuesday, we flew over downtown Fargo and I grabbed an aerial shot of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Steve was a great tour guide and instructor rolled into one. He kept up a conversation providing instruction and input, especially as it involved the electronic flight displays and basic flight techniques.

We also were close enough to my condo in south Fargo that we detoured a bit from our flight plan and made a couple of circles over the building. Our unit is in the center of the building and the chimney closest to the back yard is for the fireplace in our apartment.

Another building that I happened to photograph is the new Sanford Hospital, then open only a few days before the photo below was taken.

After our flight, Fred received a quick review and I scheduled another day for my rental checkride. That would be a little more involved, I’d have to demonstrate for the instructor my ability to do basic flight maneuvers as well as a few takeoffs and landings before they would sign me off to rent. This would not be a big deal for me. I get an annual check ride for Civil Air Patrol in the Cessna 182. That aircraft is larger, has greater horsepower and is better equipped for our CAP mission. I was happy to not do any “stupid pilot tricks” for the instructor and came away with an agreement that allows me to rent from them whenever I’d like.

John Steiner