6/2/06 Back from Montana - My friend and I had an adventurous trip to Montana and made it back today via the airlines. We flew the Ercoupe 11.2 hours over two days. The weather wasn't as cooperative as forecast, so we got delayed a couple of times and had to change our route. We stopped at Eau Claire WI, Alexandria and Ortonville MN, and Aberdeen SD the first day. The second day we stopped at Mobridge SD, Bowman ND, and Hysham MT, which is where we ended up. Due to the delays, limitations such as no night flying, and our short time window, we didn't make it all the way to our destination of Butte MT. That last leg was made overnight by car with the buyer of the airplane. Still, we successfully flew over 800 nautical miles in an antique airplane over some of the most unpopulated areas we had ever seen! We met lots of interesting people along the way. Groundspeeds ranged from 73 to 95 knots and averaged about 85 knots, which is very slow by air travel standards. We didn't get any sleep the night we arrived in Hysham. I learned a lot, including that if I ever do this again I will need more time. Overall it was an exciting journey. It is a big sense of accomplishment to think about what we managed to do!

badlands in North Dakota, evening of Thursday June 1

6/4/06 Velocity Flight - Just a couple days after crossing several states in a slow, antique airplane, I got to fly in a high-performance homebuilt airplane on the opposite end of the spectrum. Mic Jones, an airline pilot who has a flying club at Brennand Airport, recently brought his newly built Velocity Elite home to Appleton's airport. Today we flew to La Crosse (western border of WI) and back. Mic gave some family members a ride and we all went out to lunch. We flew as fast as 200 miles per hour and as high as 9,500 feet. This was the first pusher-type (canard) airplane I had ever flown in. I flew it for a while and liked how it handled.

N173JB, a four-seat, retractable gear, canard-type homebuilt Velocity Elite

6/17/06 R/C Model Airshow - The Fond du Lac Aeromodelers Association, Inc. held a radio-controlled aircraft airshow today. I spent a couple hours watching the big boys' toys! There were a big variety of airplanes and several helicopters. One guy had a huge jet that flew well over 100 mph.

just some of the planes at the r/c airshow

6/30/06 Demo Flight in an Evektor SportStar - My flight school is looking into offering sport pilot training so we decided to test fly an Evektor SportStar. It's a two-seat low wing airplane with a bubble canopy and a Rotax engine. The salesman and I went flying for almost an hour and I really liked the plane. It was nice to fly in something brand-new. We will be weighing all our options before starting a sport pilot program, but the SportStar won my endorsement.

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