A blast from the past.

Occasionally we all have days where we are reminded of fond memories from years past. As I get older, I look back on the experiences I had when I was young, flying across the country in small aircraft with my dad, and I remember how much fun it was to see the world from a few thousand feet up. The reason I'm feeling so nostalgic is simple really. I was lucky enough to relive a small portion of my youth at work!

Years ago, my father and I would fly his company aircraft to meetings all across Canada. We made multiple trips from Ottawa to various western locations, and made stops everywhere in between. These trips are some of my best memories now that I look back on them. I can remember the first trip we took out west in a Cessna 182. I was completely amazed at the size of our country, and the variety of geography. On every trip I would see something new and exciting that would keep pumping up my love for aviation.

Fast forward to July 29th 2012.
 I'm sitting in the lunch room at work enjoying an imported tea from London, England that one of my coworkers brought in. This was a pretty slow day at work up until the PACC coordinator walked into the room, and said that she had a call come in for a flight to London, Ontario. I was quite excited to go on this trip so I started flight planning right away and got my stuff into the plane for our overnight stay.

We only head to Ontario a few times per year, and since that's my home province I was thrilled to go! My flight plan had us going from Saskatoon to Thunder Bay for fuel, then on to London. The weather on route was pretty nice apart from a cold front that we had to work our way around near Winnipeg, and a few cells near Thunder Bay.

FL270, 300 knots, and a smooth ride. Heading east to Thunder Bay and around the weather was pretty simple today. Once we were past the cold front we had mostly clear sailing into London, with a few puffy clouds to avoid.

July 30th 2012.

After an overnight stay in London we're heading back to the airport for our return trip. This is where my nostalgia started. A year earlier I had flown to London with one of my best friends and my father. When I parked the King Air the night before I picked a spot on the ramp that was pretty close to where I had parked the Seneca, so just before we jumped in the plane for our flight back home I had our nurse snap a photo of me with the 200, just as Ernie had done a year earlier with the Seneca. Once I saw the picture my brain went into fond memory mode. The rest of the day was a blast from the past.



One year later and quite a bit has changed!

FL280, 240 knots, smooth. Our flights were going to take a little longer today with the wind right on the beak, but not to worry! The AM radio was tuned to small town stations just like the ones I remember from being a kid in the 182 with dad. 

My PFD.

I couldn't help but smile as we cut through the sky in this Nintendo video game plane with all the latest and greatest technology, listening to the things like hog futures and the price of corn on the radio. I remember times spent with dad, floating above the green trees and blue lakes of Canada. As I sit in pressurized, air conditioned comfort with the autopilot flying, I feel extremely lucky to have been able to share those days with him. It's those trips that I will remember for the rest of my life, and it's those trips that got me to where I am today!

It's pretty hard to call what I do for a living work, and I totally didn't expect to be taken on a nostalgic journey through the past!

Thanks dad!!