Reasons to Smile or: The Adventures of 21Y

My sincerest apologies for neglecting this blog as of late. I'm still recovering from a two-hour statistics final so my brain's somewhat on the fried side. Here's a bit of what's been going on that has kept me from updating on schedule.

WAI MSU Northern Lights Chapter's 2nd Annual Pilot Panel: This our Women in Aviation chapter's yearly outreach event. We invite a variety of aviation professionals and active promoters in to talk about their career or niche in aviation and to answer questions. I was on the planning committee for this event and contacted speakers and coordinated several other efforts including contacting the local EAA chapter (which worked out wonderfully, I may add!). Here's a picture of this year's panel (L-R: Steve Krog, Dick Keyt, Joe Coraggio. Not pictured: Dr. Nihad Daidzic).


MSU Aviation Banquet: I got roped into helping plan this year aviation department banquet. Despite all the headaches, it really wasn't so bad, and things went quite well!


To backtrack: Misfortune befell Steve's car while he was here in Mankato and he was unable to drive it back home (the fuel pump croaked). He hitched a ride home with a friend of mine and flew back on Wednesday with a new fuel pump. On account of having done this before (and being part of the reason he got stranded in the first place), I helped replace it. We went out to grab lunch before Steve set off Hartford-bound and talked about flying and jobs and careers and life in general. As we bade each other goodbye, Steve paused a moment. "They have hangar space here in Mankato?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "The FBO rents space and the city has hangars for lease I think."

"Well, check into that . . . maybe you could commute in a Cub for a week."

My heart flipped a few times before settling. For real? Fly a Cub cross-country, low & slow, across Wisconsin to keep in Mankato with me, pretending it was mine for a week, hopping rides like a starving barnstormer? NO WAY!

I'll spare you the boring details of finding a hangar . . . but it worked! On Friday, April 17th, Adam and I set off from Hartford, WI, to Mankato, MN, via Wisconsin Dells and Dodge Center. Here are a few highlights of the trip:

En route!


The light was just sweet at Dodge Center (KTOB) . . . it demanded a picture of 21Y.



Of course, this light demanded the heroic "Girl and Her Cub" shot . . .



The next Wednesday we rendezvoused with a local Luscombe pilot who showed us around some super cool private strips!



I thought this was a cool picture of Ken's 8E . . . it was taken in 2009 but could've been taken just about anywhere in the last 50 years or so.



Giving Kim a ride!



More adventures to come . . . I'm out of hard drive space and can't offload any more pictures :(

Also more updates soon, but wanted to give you an idea of what's been happening with me recently . . . it turns out if you put a yellow airplane in front of me, my priorities get ALL switched around!

--Amy