I apologize for the almost two months of silence on my part. In early August I graduated with honor from the UND Aerospace program and was promptly hired as an instructor at a local flight school. Since then, I’ve been working eight to ten hour shifts, seven days a week. Doing flight reviews and bouncing around the pattern in 152s is grueling work, made even less rewarding because of the pay: it’s not bad per hour, but I’m paid per billable hour. That makes all the difference in the world.

I finally got out of dodge on Friday, heading to Reno for the yearly trip to the National Championship Air Races. The Horizon Q400 crew took a detour on the way down, giving us a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier and a great start to the journey. Even though the races were full of drama and tragedy early in the week, it was – as always – an amazing weekend. I still need to make it to Oshkosh, but I’m convinced that Reno is one of the greatest flying events in the world. The crews and aviation vendors are friendly and with no exceptions truly happy to be there. I spent a good hour and a half talking with various aircraft sales reps learning more than I thought possible about becoming a demo pilot, and had dozens of conversations with neighbors in the crowd. I’m looking forward to next year already.

As time consuming my job and the two hour round-trip commute are, I’m still having fun. I’m flying (almost) every day, getting paid for the privilege, and I get to spend time messing around in brand-new G1000 Cessnas and taking aerial photographers on trips around the Puget Sound. I’m out of the UND bubble, and it couldn’t have turned out better.