We were able to participate in the Abel Island Fly-In this weekend. With an actual plane! It was so much fun!

Since I’m long-winded, this is going to be THREE posts (figuring out if we could go, flying there, the fly-in and flying back). You’re welcome!

First, where is Abel Island? It’s in Guttenberg, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. You can get there by car, plane, or boat. We’ve been visiting Guttenberg since I was a little kid, and my family has cabins on Esmann Island, the island next to Abel. Steven and I have both always wanted to learn to fly, and a part of that is so we could fly here (1.2-1.5 hour flight instead of a 4 hour drive) to see family.

What is the Abel Island Fly-In? It’s an event where people fly their planes/helicopters/whatever in, park on the island, eat, hang out, then fly out!

Why did we participate? Because we could actually fly ourselves there, and that’s hella cool! Well, we sorta could. That’s a long story that I’ll try to make brief…

So. We’ve had the fly-in on our calendar forever. Steven figured he’d have his private pilot license by the fly-in, and booked a plane for all day Saturday/Sunday a month+ in advance. He invited Josh, his previous instructor (who left the school in January) to come with us. Josh had fun when he visited the river (twice!) last year, and we thought he would enjoy going back, and he’s super cool and we like hanging out with him.

But as the date loomed closer and closer, it became clear Steven was NOT going to have his license, despite his best efforts to get his final oral and checkride scheduled. There is a LOT of demand and not a lot of DPEs (designated pilot examiners) around. Womp womp. Cross your fingers he gets on the schedule soon.

So we’re like “No big deal! Josh flies freaking JETS. He can be the PIC (pilot in command) instead of Steven!”

Not so fast though – Josh does fly jets, and is no longer current (day currency requirements require that within the preceding 90 days, a pilot must have conducted at least three takeoffs and landings in the same category, class, and type of aircraft they intend to operate as the sole manipulator of the flight) on the wittle baby single-engine aircraft we were taking (Cessna 172). He could be the PIC, but he needed to get current. Which required scheduling a flight for him. Which took a bunch of coordination.

Long story long, his currency flight got scheduled for right before we were going to leave on Saturday. So we wouldn’t know if we were leaving, for sure, until he passed his currency flight (which we were 99.9% positive he would, and that .01% doubt was not on him). Then, there was the weather to consider.

So for 2+ weeks I’ve been hoping we could go, but trying not to get too excited, since so many things had to align for it to happen and we (Steven) had done the most we (Steven) could. YOU GUYS. I really struggle with the unknown. It was hard not to be able to plan since things were so up in the air (<—- ha ha ha, flying joke).  But, this is good for me. To learn to go with the flow. And be flexible. And manage my emotions. And all that.

And as you already know, since I started with telling you we got to go, Josh passed his test, and we were able to fly out, on Saturday. However. The fly-in was supposed to be Saturday, but on Friday night, got moved to Sunday due to weather. We had an interesting flight getting there, which I will tell you all about in the next post!

I have to add, we both really appreciate Josh jumping through all these hoops to get current so we could go. He could have just said, “nah, that sounds like a lot of extra work to coordinate and do” and then that would be that. But that’s not the type of guy he is (plus he wanted to go back and have fun on the jet skis and at the fly-in). So, thank you, Josh!