OK, it isn't back country flying, but it was a nice day and we flew over a LOT of inhospitable backcountry to get there. Besides, the Wright boys kind of started this whole flying thing. About 30 years ago, some friends had me take their grandmother for her first flight (in any plane) in my Grumman AA5 Traveler. After the flight we went to the airport café to have some pie. Mimi was in her mid 90s at the time, and over the pie she reveled that her family lived in North Carolina back when the Wright brother's made their historical flight. She said they didn't think much of it at the time because they didn't get very high or go very far (120 feet). She then mentioned that this "flying thing" really has come a long way hasn't it! That still ranks as one of my most memorable flights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IISZLLomWnU&feature=youtu.be

Let me see if I parsed that right. Did you just say that in the 1980's you took a woman up for her very first flight who had witnessed the Wright brothers first flight? That's unspeakably cool!

She didn't witness it, but she lived in the town and remembers the buzz when the flight took place. Her parents weren't impressed because it seemed completely impractical. Mimi had to admit that flying had come a long way since then. Her parents left the Atlantic seaboard a few years later to homestead in Washington State. Mimi still owned a lot of the commercial buildings and land near Puget Sound Naval Shipyard where I worked at the time. I flew her over her properties and she really got a kick out of it. Despite it being her first flight of any kind, she wasn't the least bit nervous. I guess you let go of your worries by the time you hit your 90's.

On an unrelated note, back in the same time frame I was doing some research for a biography a friend was writing on Lincoln Beachey, the first American to do a loop in an aeroplane (Lincoln Beachey, the Man Who Owned the Sky, by Frank Marrero). I was in Washington DC on business and stopped off at the Air and Space Museum to try and get some pictures for the book. I got special permission to peruse their archives. While there, the historian emeritus at the time heard what I was looking into and asked to meet me. Paul Garber wanted to chat about early flying, so we did. He regaled me with stories of the primitive primary glider he took his first flights in, so I told him about flying hang gliders. Then he pulled out his pilot's license - it was signed by Orville Wright! Now that was cool! Paul passed away in 1992, but I got to meet him and hear stories that dated back to the origins of flight. It really feels good to be part of that continuum.