Flight with the Old Man

After a year since our first flight together, and my first flight with a passenger, my Dad and I again returned to the skies to venture up to Keene, NH.

Taking him up in one of the new 172S models that I have been training in, he got to see what flying is like in a plane that is a little newer than the models he used to train in 25 years ago!

Departing out of BED on a beautiful, clear, calm day, I dialed KEEN into my GPS and we climbed up to 3,000' for our trip. Without having to do all the hand flying that my instrument requires, I was free again to try out the autopilot. Being sure to set it up right and keep the throttles set appropriately, I turned out the system and instructed it to hold 3,000' and fly direct to Keene Airport. Piece of cake. The only problem was...it's not fun! You still need to pay close attention to be sure that everything is working, so you are doing all the same work without the fun of flying. So I kept disconnecting it and hand flying until I wanted to try another feature out, or be able to focus out the window to take a picture or two.

After we passed Mt. Monadnock, the runways came into sight and I set up on the downwind to bring us in. With no other plane in the pattern, the approach was normal and we landed without any issue. Taxiing over to the ramp, we parked and took a few minutes to stand up and stretch our legs.

On the way out, we watched a Hawker 850XP corporate jet, and an old WWII Waco depart ahead of us. Talk about the old meeting the new! On our climb out we flew right over my old roommate. Ben's, home and sandpit in his back yard, before turning to head back to BED direct. The flight back was a little faster with a slight tailwind, and since Hanscom was now very busy, they had me do quite a bit of maneuvering in the pattern before clearing me to land.

Overall another great flight! Training is fun and interesting, but nothing beats getting someone else up in the air to enjoy what makes me so happy.

"To some, the sky is the limit.

To those who love aviation, the sky is home."