I don’t have a Stearman (wishes, wishes…), but anything I am allowed to fly is my favorite airplane and at my age, more fun than any other activity I can (or can’t) do.
I retired from manufacturing 4 years ago, and I’m now flight instructing full time. At 71, going to ‘work’ each day is like going to the circus!
When my wife of 48 years passed away, I was introduced to a wonderful woman. For our first date, we flew about an hour south, had a beautiful dinner at a restaurant right across from the airport, and flew home. Don’t know if that was the kicker, but she is now my fiancé’, so I guess the flying thing works
Reading this article really made me smile! I retired a little over two years ago from flying for a major airline, bought an old Piper Cherokee, a hangar located on a private grass strip and loving every minute of it. Many of my days are spent restoring and flying the old bird as well as socializing with fellow pilots in my home town. I am already beginning to research a new project once I’m done with this one that will involve backcountry STOL flying. The first few months of my retirement were a difficult adjustment but I wouldn’t go back now other than to just fly big airliners and fly with close friends that I still stay in contact with.
If we safely land after having a blast cavorting and laughing at the fun we had, I would say we did move the needle of aviation a little bit and I bet we learned something while we were laughing.
As I tell my student pilots, “There is no better fun than flying an airplane.”
Another great story that so many of us can relate to. My story is similar to “Kev’s”. We flew for the same airline, in fact in approximately the same time frame. I also have never given up my GA roots, and I so look forward to cavorting through the skies in this approaching warmer weather with my buds at HAO. Sun N Fun is next week, and it’s my annual introduction to warm weather flying. This year I’m going to non-rev to FL for the first time in more than 10 years. I’m a little nervous about it because I don’t like getting bumped, but looking forward to what has become of our once great airline - if anything.
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Wow, time flies and here I am 17 years after having set a brake on a 767 at DIA. Before I retired from the greatest job in the world, herding a big beautiful 767 around the friendly skies, I would stop at APA on my way home to fly my RV4 in unbounded exuberance. All the gentleman acro maneuvers and get the G meter to at least 4. Perhaps straff a field that is no longer there having turned into a suburb. Now an older aviator, I still fly my RV4 of 35 years and have increased my fleet with a Pitts S1S and Laser 200. I fly all three in rotation to stay current and the Laser is my G tolerance machine. Half an hour yesterday I returned with 9 plus and 2 minus on the G meter. My playmates are what keep me coming back for more!
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I hear you Scott. I grew up and learned how to fly at LAL back in the pre-disco 70’s but have not been to S&F for a few years. I flew at the very first S&F and amazed everybody with a screeching fly-by in an Ercoupe. Both sets of parents for my wife and I have croaked meaning I no longer own a house in Lakeland. I am too cheap to get a hotel room and too spoiled to camp. I also haven’t non-revved in about ten years. I have found that buying a ticket is cheaper than getting bumped and having to buy a hotel room. best, KG (ATL, ORD, CVG)
Wow Hans, you are a tougher guy than me! I limit myself to three or four gees and only have two airplanes. You must have done it right. I flew both seats on the seven six at the “Big Grit” I think we sold you our “Dumptrucks” (767-200s) after I got done bending them for you. kg
Great idea. I fly my 7GCAA, a friend’s Beaver and AirCam almost weekly now that I am retired. I used my Citabria for 20 years commuting to work and medical appointments. We live on an island so it was “necessary” transportation saving hours on the ferry. It’s only in the past few years that I have kicked back and just fly to fly. It’s great to get off the rock and eat lunch somewhere else. It is also great to just cruise the islands low in the AirCam and do gentle acro in the Citabria. I used the Beaver to deliver a drill press to my son and visit with the old crew. I was a chief pilot and a check airman for the FAA. Those days are way behind me. Razor clam season is coming up so Copalis State Beach is next on the list.
About 55 years ago, while toilet paper chasing, I smell smoke in the cockpit. T had ingested some toilet paper in the heater muff. No fire but some concern.
I got my private ticket on my 17th birthday. Then Ohio State for Aero Engineering & Flight Training. Flew five days a week, and suddenly flying wasn’t so much fun. Dropped out, took a different career path, and never stopped flying for fun.
Lots of credit to “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” for that decision, which I’ve never regretted.
I learned to fly in the early 70s in Air Force jets. I learned to fly GA while an AF pilot in Alaska. Always carried a fishing rod and .44 magnum and often landed on grass strips in the tundra.
After leaving the AF in 1979, declining an F-15 in favor of a B-727, I accept a job with Braniff as a check airman and simulator instructor. That job, of course, went bust, and I earned my keep as an engineer while continuing to fly GA, finishing up flying a King Air for FlightSafety.
I just sold my motor glider and now have only my gorgeous Cessna 180K and a gyro plane that I built from a kit. Today the winds are 12G19, pretty easy but tomorrow they’ll be down into single digits with temperatures finally in the 70s, so I’ll fly tomorrow.
It’s really tough deciding what to fly today, but somebody’s got to do it!