Reflections on visiting Kitty Hawk, in the Mooney

[Pasturepilot]

Hey friends, 

I don't post a lot here these days - the day job gets in the way at times. But knocking about the country in my C model remains my favorite hobby. Tinkering with it is slowly tapering down from major projects to minor maintenance, thankfully. The pandemic gave me all the time I needed for a major panel overhaul and some other rainy-day projects I'd put off for a while.

For several years, I was writing at Plane & Pilot magazine. After some changes in that industry,I decided to start a substack based on my flying stories - I've got a big folder full of them. Many are Mooney-centric, such as this tale about flying to Kitty Hawk a few years ago, the feeling of standing where the Wrights stood for their historic flight, and maybe, just maybe, passing along some of the magic to a kid I met on the ramp while preparing to fly home. 

The story crossed my mind as the 120th anniversary of the Wrights' historic flight passed this weekend. I revisited a column from a couple years back, added some context and detail, as well as a picture or two.

https://wordsaloft.substack.com/p/on-hallowed-ground

Incidentally I missed Mooneyspacer @hmasing by about a day, according to the visitor's log in the line shack. 

If you visit the site and like what you see, a free subscription gets you a Friday round-up of news briefs from across the aviation industry, and a Monday morning flying tale - catering to those who are settling into a desk to start the work week, hoping to offer a little inspiration to get aloft at the next opportunity. 

And with that, the I see the mercury finally climbing past freezing here in Atlanta. Time to go to the (unheated) hangar and put the Grey Gal back together from her annual. I've flown nothing but jets for almost four months between training at work, and the annual inspection. It's time to fix that.

[Skates97]

Great story, well written. We had the opportunity to fly there a few years back on a coast to coast trip. It was an incredible experience, and while I was expecting to feel excitement and awe at being there, I was actually surprised by the level of emotion I felt. Your article's title of "On hallowed ground" sums it up perfectly.

Here's the writeup from our visit.

https://intothesky.com/2019/07/09/coast-to-coast-mission-tour-day-6/