10/1/07 Day 2 of the Trip to Hartford - After sleeping in and a late start today, Mike, Kent, and I flew from Akron, OH to Franklin, PA where Mike had relatives. We had dinner at the airport and spent the night in Franklin.

10/2/07 Day 3 of the Trip to Hartford - Mike, Kent, and I flew from Franklin to Lock Haven, home of the original Piper Aircraft Company. After a stop there to plan out the next part of the trip, which would be IFR, we departed with a setting sun. We had an unplanned stop at Williamsport, PA and then made it from there to Hartford, CT (Plainville, actually... Robertson Field or 4B8) something like 9:30 p.m. Dan picked us up to take us to the hotel.

Arriving in the Lock Haven area (left) and departing at dusk (right)

10/3/07 - 10/6/07 AOPA Expo 2007 - I tagged along during most of Kent's activities of browsing the exhibits, visiting the aircraft display, and doing interviews for the podcast. The aircraft on display were mostly the same things I'd seen at Oshkosh, with the exception of a couple new models from Piper and Diamond. There were lots of booths to visit in the expo hall. I didn't go to any of the seminars, but I noticed I could later see them online, so that was okay. One night we all had dinner with aviation author Rinker Buck, who wrote Flight of Passage among other things.

10/7/07 Trip Back from Hartford - First of all Dan was generous to offer shipping back a bunch of clothes, etc. so we wouldn't have to haul as much in the airplane, meaning I could sit sideways on the back seat a little more comfortably than having my legs squished in one position for a whole day of flying. That helped a lot but it was still a long flight back for me... I learned never to volunteer to ride in one of the older-style Piper Cherokees with two tall people up front! Oh well... We made it all the way back in one day. Kent flew Mike's plane all the way to Chicago because we were on IFR flight plans and Mike doesn't yet have an instrument rating. This time we flew longer legs. We first stopped in Wellsboro, PA after flying a couple hours. Then we stopped at one of the airports in Toledo, OH after 2-1/2-hour leg... but no one was home, so we hopped over to the main airport (Toledo Express) to buy fuel and get food. Later we departed there and flew another two hours or so to Mike's home airport in Grayslake, IL, with the privilege of flying over Chicago at night. In Grayslake Kent and I got the Arrow back out, moved our stuff from Mike's plane to the Arrow, and flew another hour to Middleton for a grand total of about 7-1/2 hours of flying, arriving around midnight with lightning off in the distance. The next day I would complete my trip with a solo flight back to Brennand in the Arrow.

Mountains near Wellsboro

10/11/07 Flying the Twin Beech - Our flight school's mechanic and a pilot have partnered to obtain somewhat of an aviation artifact: a 1956 Beech 18, or "Twin Beech." I was in the right place at the right time, washing our school's Cessna 172, when the co-owner/pilot asked if I wanted to ride along on a relocation flight. The two of us rode in another 172 up to Green Bay, then took the Beech 18 to Oshkosh to drop off a towbar, then flew into Brennand. I flew the plane for a while between Green Bay and Oshkosh, finding it to be stable and easy to fly. (No takeoffs or landings, of course!) I couldn't believe how well it made it into our short and narrow runway at Brennand, hardly using any room. It was a rare and neat opportunity to fly such a collector's item. This one will live at Brennand Airport while it is restored.

10/12/07 9th Student Solo - Congratulations to Jeremy who was my ninth student to solo. Today he joined the club at Waupaca in the 172.

10/13/07 It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's... Corn? - Today my student Dave did his second dual cross-country with me, and my student Steve rode along. We flew from Neenah to Madison, then Juneau, then to Fond du Lac for diversion practice, then back to Neenah. On the first leg, halfway to Madison, we saw a cloud of what looked like birds up at 3,000 feet MSL. Nope, it was corn husks, we realized, floating around all the way up there. Weird.

10/26/07 To Ames for a Midwest Fly-In - Tony from the Pilots of America (PoA) message board was hosting another get-together in Ames, IA this weekend. Tonight Kent and I flew the 182 on a night IFR flight from Madison to Ames, in the clouds most of the time.

10/27/07 Flying the IAR 823 - Steve from PoA flew his IAR 823 Romanian military training airplane from Mississippi to Ames for the fly-in, and I had the privilege of flying it with him. Back in June I rode in the back seat during a flight from Gaston's. This time I sat in the copilot's seat, where I'm used to sitting as an instructor, and flew the plane from takeoff to touchdown. Steve helped me out with some great coaching. I thought it was a nice-handling airplane and fun to fly. It definitely is roomy inside with a good view... I can even see WAY over the nose without a cushion! Kent flew next to us in the 182 for some aerial photos. Earlier today we had a cookout with about 25 people gathering for lunch, then everyone took a tour of the windtunnel lab at Iowa State University. We also set foot inside a Gulfstream business jet and chatted with its pilot for quite a while.

photo by Jesse Angell

10/28/07 Watching Gliders - By the time Kent and I made it back to the airport around noon, some of the fly-in attendees had left but there were still a bunch of us there hanging around and watching gliders fly. Our friends Tony and Matt went up in their gliders along with some other members of the club in Ames. We watched the Piper Super Cub tow the gliders up to altitude, and in the case of Matt and Tony, watched them disappear off into the distance as they flew cross-country in their lightweight planes. (They made it 43 miles.) Kent and I and a second plane left for Ankeny, where we had $100 steaks and ribs at the Outback Steakhouse. The other plane left for Nebraska and Kent and I flew back to Madison, with a stop at Washington, IA for cheap fuel.

©2004-2007 Kate Bernard all rights reserved. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Made on a Mac Badge is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., used with permission.