Flying interested me first as machinery. An aircraft is a collection of systems that only becomes useful once the pilot understands how they interact with weather, weight, terrain, navigation, and judgement. At some point, understanding all of that from the ground stopped being enough. It is also, honestly, one of the few hobbies that is genuinely useful and still carries a little prestige.
Training
I started training for a Canadian Private Pilot Licence in October 2013 at Namao Flying Club near Edmonton, working through several instructors over roughly two years.
I flew until June 2014, when work became busy enough that I stopped for fifteen months. My next flight was September 10, 2015, and from there I flew several days most weeks until the licence was finished.
First solo
The club’s chief flight instructor took me around the circuit two or three times, then got out of the aircraft on the runway and told me it was my turn.
The surprise came on the takeoff roll. With one person suddenly missing, the Cessna left the runway noticeably sooner than it ever had during training. Once the weight change registered, I flew the three circuits and landed without incident.
The flight test
I flew the flight test on October 30, 2015. The examiner was a retired military jet pilot who had flown the CF-101 Voodoo, which made the conversation around the test nearly as interesting as the test itself.
The one awkward moment was a simulated emergency built on an instrument indication. My first reaction was that the gauge itself had failed, since nothing else in the cockpit agreed with it, but I second-guessed the simple answer and spent a minute or two hunting for something more elaborate.
Eventually I said, “The gauge is broken.”
“Exactly.”
We flew back to the airport, and I had passed.
Flights worth remembering
The mountain checkout over the Rockies toward Golden is the obvious one. Mountain flying makes the scale of the landscape hard to ignore, and it asks for a different kind of attention than crossing the prairie.
Flying to visit family was memorable for a quieter reason. Instead of driving to a nearby city, I arrived at its airport with family waiting to watch the landing. I later took several family members up to circle their cities and find their houses from the air.
I also spent a full day flying young people at a COPA introductory-flight event. The flights were free, and the kid in the front seat could take the controls briefly and feel what an aircraft actually responds like. That was one of the better uses I found for the licence.
More flights, photographs, and videos are in my flight log.
Lately
I have not flown much recently; other projects and responsibilities took the time. I also served as president of Namao Flying Club for a number of years, retiring from the position in 2025.
Now that the club work is behind me, I would like to get back into the air for myself.