By Andrew Vogeney
I’m delighted to see that folks haven’t abandoned Halloween this year. It’s one of my favorite holidays and I love seeing the creative decorations that always pop up during “spooky season.” I wasn’t as delighted to encounter a few spider webs while cleaning out my hangar last weekend. But it got me thinking about a flying analogy.
Many of us base our plane at, or rent from, a single airport. If we drew a line between every takeoff and landing, I’m inclined to believe most people would create a “web” that stretched only so far from home base… perhaps a few hundred miles in various directions, with an occasional straggler further out. Sadly, many probably only draw a few – or maybe only one – of these flying webs through their leisure flying career.
Running with this analogy, I reflected on how lucky I’ve been to have drawn three of these airplane webs in the decade and a half I’ve been flying. Most of my flying has originated from the Phoenix area since I’ve owned my plane. Having rented from Goodyear and subsequently hangered in Deer Valley, my web spun mostly to the north, west and south. Scenic flights to Sedona and Payson were the highlights of visits with friends and family. Flying over Sky Harbor for cheap fuel on the south side of town, breakfast in Tucson or to practice instrument approaches at Casa Grande accounted for many hours. And the farther stretches of my web extended into California with trips to Disney, the beach, and to visit a controller friend one time in Bakersfield.
I have a chance to spin a new web as I now spend much of my time in Chicago. Last year I was based at Chicago Executive (KPWK). Due to the proximity to O’Hare, flights that didn’t necessitate a specific destination end up being to the north. Over the course of many months I had fewer than five pleasure flights – going to Milwaukee with a co-worker for dinner, up to Burlington for cheap gas (and some grass runway landings), and of course the scenic lakefront/city skyline tour which never gets old. All the other flights counted toward my instrument training, but nevertheless made their mark.
This year I’ve found my hangar home (full of real spider webs) at DuPage (KDPA), now a 90-minute traffic jam across to the west side of town. This location makes trips to other parts of Illinois and parts west more appealing. Notable trips this year included a grass “farm” landing at Uncle John’s Cider Mill (add this to your fall bucket list) and back east to Long Island, New York, where my skyward adventures all began.
I’ve long wanted to take my 182 to Long Island and relive some of my experiences from my training days. Boy was my web small back then! I logged very few landings beside those at Brookhaven (KHWV) where I trained in 152s. It’s crazy to think we flew too slow to warrant many ventures into nearby Gabreski (KFOK) or Islip McArthur (KISP) where we’d sometimes get a glimpse of a Southwest plane landing before us.
The ability to take this trip was a silver lining of COVID, and our trip back to Long Island was nostalgic. I got to overfly Calverton where I worked catching tandem skydivers the summer before my senior year of high school, Spadaro Airport which is sadly permanently closed, and land back at Gabreski to a warm family welcome. I got to give a friend from Arizona a nice scenic flight while regaining my instrument currency through East Hampton, Montauk and Block Island. In my years living in New York I never made it this far east by airplane!
Leaving Westhampton on an IFR flight plan I got to say “New York Departure” just the way the folks at New York Departure say it. Long Island was mostly hidden under the low overcast layer on our way out as I began connecting that first, small Long Island web to the one I’m currently working on in Chicago. Along the way, the strands extended to Provincetown, Portland and Eastport, Maine (checking off the furthest east airport in the US), Burlington, Syracuse, Niagara Falls (bucket list for sure, but only by air), Columbus, Portland (Indiana this time), and Muncie. There were a few stops along the way – some more notable than others, some worth stopping at, and some which will be avoided if possible the next time!
A lot has changed since 2005. Returning to flying after a few years off, and doing so in hot, mountainous Phoenix, was a huge learning curve. Flying an unfamiliar plane to California and twice struggling to find airports that blended into their surroundings was also not easy the first few times around. Taking a brand new (to me) 182 home from Oklahoma would have been terrifying without Tommy in the right seat. The combination of Foreflight, good avionics and an instrument rating have given me the confidence to stretch myself to the corners of my comfort zone and the corners of this country. And yes, I’m always looking outside for safety and for scenery.
Becoming comfortable with your local flying area is important, especially if it’s new to you. Finding ways to stretch that comfort zone is hugely rewarding, and my Halloween wish to you is that the only web you get stuck in this year is a metaphorical flying one just like mine.
