We’ve all heard the maxim, “The best things in life are free.” It’s true. But what about those great things in life that do cost something? I’ve been thinking about it and making a list of…

Passion. It sparks in radiant arcs when you discover it—or it discovers you. When you possess it, you couldn’t hide its warm glow if you tried. Passion spills beyond the edges of your physical form to…

Some of you may have noticed a lag between posts recently, which may imply I’m not writing as much. Au contraire. Last week I wrote at least six hours a day, sometimes seven and eight. What am I spending so much time writing if not…

Flaps, one notch. Mixture, rich. Sky, clear. Throttle, full. Brakes, released. The plane clings to the ground for an instant, Newton and one of his pesky laws stunts your…

Imagine for a moment you're confined to a prison cell. It’s not the dark, dank room we’ve grown to expect based on the movies. Instead, it’s warm and comfortable. You’ve decorated it with…

Sometimes help not only comes when you least expect it, it also arrives in the most unlikely of forms. At least that was my experience three weeks ago when…

I was a father of young boys, halfway through flight training, and ready to quit. So I asked for a sign. What came back was a rake handle to the face.

I found myself immersed in a sea of people last week, adrift in the ebb and flow of humanity at O’Hare Airport. Sometimes it felt as if I was swimming against a current, a riptide of passengers intent on…

When a caterpillar emerges from a chrysalis, does it know it has become a butterfly capable of flight, or does it make a leap of faith from the empty husk? I not sure we’ll ever learn the answer, but…

There is something you were meant to do. The fortunate among us know what that something is and are…

Someone once asked me if my airplane had a rearview mirror. While it might be useful for keeping an eye on the kids in the back seats, there’s…

For those that read Weather or Not, you know I planned to fly myself to Atlanta for the weekend. The universe apparently had another idea for me since a wicked line of thunderstorms barreled through the…

I’ve been thinking about the weather lately. This weekend, I’ll fly my plane to Atlanta to join my…

We repeat the phrase without ever hearing it. Underneath is a harder question—who taught you where your ceiling was?

I’ll let you in on a secret, but don’t laugh. Well… you can laugh, but try not to do it in front of me. Here goes: the reason I learned to fly an airplane was because…

One luxury of flying an airplane is you travel straight to your destination. Barring an obstacle along the route, like restricted airspace or an ornery weather system, you can…

Balance is critical in aviation. Flying a plane that has a center of gravity too far forward or aft invites trouble. You can stare at the outside of a…

This might come as a shocker, but aviation weather forecasters don’t always get it right. The accuracy level they’ve achieved in recent years is phenomenal, but you can bet there are times when…

If you ask a pilot how he navigates, how he knows which direction to fly, the acronym GPS will probably appear somewhere in the answer. After all, there are no signs in the sky…

There are no signs in the sky—well, at least no man-made signs. I like this. One of the reasons I relish my time in the air is due to…