days in a row, as predictable characteristics.
Last spring, my soon-to-be stepson Connor
decided he wanted to get his pilot’s license
as part of a senior (high school) project. He
had six hours a day, over the course of five
weeks, in which to complete his training.
One would think that was plenty of time.
Except in New England. He only managed
to get through his second solo.
“Really,” pilots at the airport said. “This
is unusual. It never does this, here.”
That is, by the way, the same thing pilots
said at my airport in Minnesota, 20 years ago,
in reference to snow on the ground by early
November. Four years later, I told them I’d
decided they were right. More typical was
snow on the ground in October. So I suspect
New England may prove something similar to
be true. Perhaps we actually got lucky this year.
Even this trip north along the Ipswich
coastline was more than three weeks in the
making, as I waited for good flight weather to
coincide with a day I was in town with no
other conflicting obligations. I was going up to
see a friend who also was adjusting to a new,
East Coast location: Alan Klapmeier, formerly
of Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth, Minnesota, and
now of Kestrel Aircraft in Brunswick, Maine.
