Yesterday’s flying adventure was to the Burlington (WI) Fly-In, which also doubles as a German car/plane show. Three thoughts:

1. We need to arrive at fly-ins toward the beginning. This one was from 10-2 and we couldn’t get the plane until noon (funny enough, the person who had it before us also went to this fly-in). It was around 1:15 when we got there and a lot of the planes (and cars from the car show) were already gone.

The Abel Island Fly-In (our only other fly-in experience) was similar. You know how sometimes you imagine how things are going to be in your head and don’t realize you were doing that until they didn’t go that way? That was me with that fly-in. It was from 12-3 and I figured people would land starting at 12:00 and leave starting at 3:00 but it was more land by 12:00 and leave by 3:00.

I’m not sure if they’re ALL like this, but 100% of my experience with them has been! Ha.

All that being said, we are just flying to fly (so Steven can keep learning) so we weren’t upset that a lot of the cars were gone and we still got to see some cool stuff!

2. I am so freaking impressed by Steven’s flying. That goes without saying and I’ve said it before, but it’s a level of awe that grows the more we fly together and I learn and understand more about all the things he is doing and thinking about while flying.

It was windy yesterday. Of course. Steady winds over 10 knots, gusting in the 20s. I won’t get into the maths behind which runway you depart and land on based on the winds and what the crosswinds end up being (in knots) based on the angle they hit the runway but we took off from UGN with a crazy crosswind. Like really pushing us across the runway (off the centerline) as we were leaving. And Steven handled it like a pro! Constantly adjusting the rudder and ailerons and whatever else for a smooth as possible departure. Like I said, I was impressed!

The two landings were great too – super smooth. Those runways were more aligned with the direction of the wind so there wasn’t as bad of a crosswind but there was still strong gusting. I learned that when it’s gusty like that you take the difference of the steady and gusting wind and divide it by 2 and add that to the normal landing speed to help prevent from stalling. Steven did that and flaps 20% instead of 30% so we’d be coming in a bit faster. Sorry – got a bit technical but writing that stuff helps me remember it.

Anyway, I was very “wow wow wow” yesterday. I was also thinking other passengers probably wouldn’t enjoy those gusty flights (and Steven said they’d probably think he was a bad pilot from how much the plane gets thrown around). We had invited someone who had plans and I’m glad that’s not the flight we took them on. (We’d also invited Josh who also had plans and totally wouldn’t have thought anything of it.)

3. I wonder if I could ever do this. I’ve always wanted to be a pilot and this is the first time it really seemed like something I wouldn’t be able to handle (the coordination of – there is so much going on!). Granted, Steven has well over a hundred hours of flying (which I think is great for a new pilot who started in April 2023) and I know .01% about it, so I could be wrong, but I really wonder if my little pea brain could coordinate and get into enough of a flow state to handle winds like that and the constant adjusting. I’m sure it’s one of those practice, practice, practice things, until it becomes second nature and almost flow state. Or something.