It Was a Good Week

Readers of long standing (surely there must be a few of you) will remember that when we lived in Huntsville, AL, I regularly attended breakfast meetings of the Greater Northern Alabama Lying Pilots’ Coffee-Drinking & Hangar-Talking Society. Those meetings are one of the great things that I miss about Huntsville. This week I traveled to Huntsville and attended three such meetings. For our first meeting we ate breakfast, drank coffee, and talked from eight ‘til eleven in the morning. The restaurant was serving lunch by the time we left. The loosely knit and informal society includes two airline pilots, the owner/pilot of a high-tech aerial photo company, and one physician (yes, he did own a Bonanza for awhile). One of the airline types also owns an LSA distributorship. It’s a highly knowledgeable aviation group, but they still let me take part. We solved most of the world’s problems in three days. The ones we couldn’t solve we blamed on somebody. We touched on the European Union, China, Boeing, Airbus, VLJs, LSAs, and more than a few genav aircraft and their companies. We spent one hour this morning bragging about what great pilots we are, then spent another hour admitting stupid things we had done in aircraft—some dramatically stupid—and how grateful we are that we survived them. I got back home about sundown today, tired and worn out. Then I checked my e-mail, which included a message from a truly professional pilot who told me he still remembered a compliment I gave him when he was 21. Made my day. I moved from worn out to cloud nine instantly. All in all, it was a great week for things aviation. We'd love to post your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.