From The Editor - Fun, Rediscovery & Diversions

By Jeff Berlin

There’s a great old photograph by Jacques-Henri Lartigue that captures the charming innocence of aviation’s early days. Lartigue’s photo, from 1910 and titled, “The ZYX 24 Takes Off,” epitomizes the passion and fascination people have had for flight since the dawn of aviation. I imagine if you’re reading this magazine, and my column, you have at least a bit of that fascination and understand at least a bit, or a whole lot, of that passion.

It seems to me that some of us are well on our way to entering another era of rediscovering that innocent purity and joy of flight, but on a much larger scale than back in Lartigue’s day. While in the photo they look like they’re having quite a kick, with the new light-sport aircraft available today and the sport-pilot license, a similar kick is now within reach to a much more diverse group of present and future aviators. In this issue, Tim Kern discusses the ins and outs of the sport-pilot license. A great thing about the sport-pilot rule is that so many aircraft qualify under it’s rules; pilots who like classics can tool around in planes like the CubCrafters Sport Cub, reviewed in this issue by Bill Cox, and pilots with more of a techy bent can fly any number of more modern designs, which we have been reviewing, and will continue to review, in future issues of Plane & Pilot.

And talking about flying for the pure fun of it, a while back, I went flying with a friend in his Aviat Husky. It wasn’t the new A-1B-200 that Budd Davisson flew for his article, but since we had full tanks and didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, we did some of that other type of IFR flying, following roads and trying to keep our shadow over the cars passing below. It was some of the most fun I’d had in an airplane in a long time, and it was also a real challenge trying to follow the roads’ twists and turns and keep our shadow from drifting onto the adjacent fields. Airspace and terrain allowed this dillydallying, of course.

Those who may question the wisdom of my escapades in the Husky should note that this issue also includes information about the importance of decision-making on the go. So much is written about the pre-takeoff go/no-go decision that it seems the equally important decision of whether to abort while in flight is often overlooked. After spending two weeks the past couple of summers flying a cowboy friend of mine to professional rodeos all over the American West, the dynamics of the in-flight decision of whether or not to continue became particularly interesting to me as we had a hectic schedule to keep (45 hours’ flight time in one week) and we flew some rather long cross-countries in the SR22 that I usually fly. As such, I asked Bill Cox to tap into his experience to discuss this important and timely topic, because with the coming summer flying season, the atmosphere will be more lively, the weather more unstable in the afternoon heat and the need to divert for pop-up storms will be that much more prevalent. I’ve written a fun little story about those trips to the rodeo, which appears in Plane & Pilot’s sister publication, Pilot Journal. Please pick it up and let us know what you think. You can reach me at jtberlin@wernerpublishing.com.