The Autoland system is designed to take control of the aircraft in an emergency and land it autonomously at the nearest suitable airport. This technology is meant to bring additional safety and peace of mind to the cabin for passengers and pilots concerned about possible pilot incapacitation.

• WATCH: We Fly Garmin Autoland King Air 200

“We are thrilled to deliver our first Garmin Autoland upgrade in a King Air B200,” said Dan Edwards, CEO of Elliott Aviation. “Safety is always our top priority, and the Garmin Autoland system represents a groundbreaking advancement in aviation technology. This achievement reflects our team’s expertise and commitment to providing our customers with the latest and most advanced avionics solutions.”

The company previously performed similar upgrades to Daher TBM 940s that had not been equipped with the Autoland system—specialized by Daher as Home Safe—at the factory. The Moline, Illinois, company said the King Air upgrade “underscores Elliott Aviation’s dedication to staying at the forefront of technological advancements within the aviation industry.”

• READ MORE: Elliott Aviation Completes Home Safe Upgrades to TBM 940

Founded in 1936, Elliott Aviation provides a range of aviation services including avionics, maintenance, accessories, paint, interiors, and aircraft sales.

The post Elliott Aviation Delivers First Garmin Autoland Upgrade in King Air B200 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The company bases at the Czech Republic’s Hradec Králové Airport (LKHK), where it has cared for other SOCATA models, the single-engine piston TB10 Tobago and TB20 Trinidad, as well as TBM 700s before moving into the latest models—the 910, 940, and 960, which debuted in March. It has served the general aviation community in the region for more than 20 years.

Thus far, Daher has delivered 15 TBM models to operators based in Central and Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia, and Poland. Poland has the most units, with 6 TBMs operating there. Daher expects the relationships to assist with ramping up additional sales in those countries.

• READ MORE: Daher Ramps Up TBM 960 Production

“We welcome HLS to Daher’s global Network of TBM Service Centers and as an authorized sales representative for the Czech and Slovak Republics,” said Nicolas Chabbert, senior vice president of Daher’s Aircraft Division. “With the interest in Central Europe for the TBM as a fast and efficient aircraft, we wanted a capable partner in this region to expand our activities, which we found with HLS.”

Ales Kurka, general manager at HLS, expressed pleasure at the appointment. “HLS is committed to providing professional support for the TBM in our region,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to pursuing sales opportunities that will bring this very fast turboprop aircraft into service with more owners and operators.”

HLS is an approved Part 145 (CZ 145.0059) facility, and it’s also authorized for Continued Airworthiness Procedures as a CAO (combined airworthiness organization) certified to Part CAO (CZ.CAO.0030).

As of July 2022, Daher had delivered more than 1,091 TBM models since the first of the TBM 700s came on the scene in 1990. Of these, 18 percent have been delivered in Europe, with 76 percent to North America.

The Czech Republic hosts a robust GA industry, centered most recently on development of ultralight (UL) and light sport (LSA) category aircraft by manufacturers such as Evektor and BRM Aero/Bristell—but also the light turbine OEM Aero Vodochody, makers of the L-39 single-engine jet trainer.

The post Daher Partners with Czech Service and Sales Provider appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

At FLYING, we continue to bring our readers stories about how to become a pilot, what to fly, and how to expand our horizons flying ourselves over this marvelous land. 

I was introduced to Lighthawk’s mission many years ago—and had the opportunity to bring the story to our readers through a typical flight with volunteer pilot Steve Kent and regional coordinator Jonathan Milne back in February 2020. 

The incredible amount of knowledge gained on a mission like this—surveying and photographing the Delaware River delta southeast of Philadelphia to assess environmental changes—drove home the importance of Lighthawk’s work in opening eyes through this view from above.

And we need that message, over and over, that the view from above is critical to helping us understand our world, our impact upon it, and how we can fly to a more sustainable future.

A Unique Perspective on Change

In November 2021, I had the opportunity to join a veteran ferry pilot on the delivery of a new Daher TBM 940 from the factory in France to the U.S. 

During the second day of the flight, the wide expanse of Greenland lay out before us as we crossed the first waypoint that consisted of numbers—66N40W—rather than a pronounceable fix. We’d spent an hour over the water, heading west from our departure from Keflavik, Iceland. We’d spend another two and a half hours crossing the land ahead.

Below, icy escarpments were carved into the sides of the massive mountainous frozen world, and they appeared to drop straight into the ocean, belying the fact that the terrain from the ocean to the top of the ice cap itself ranged from sea level to 10,000 feet msl in the slice of it laying ahead of us. 

Things look different from 28,000 feet, just 18,000 feet above the surface—and even lower as we descended for landing in Iqaluit, Canada.

That icecap is by most measures receding—but some people don’t want to see it, selectively seeing what they want to see—or watching the changes happen so incrementally that they don’t register. It’s hard to see from an airline window.

Maybe they need a Lighthawk flight or two, down at a low altitude, so that the perspective would change enough to make the obvious changes in the landscape hit home.

More Perspective: Everglades, SFO, and FlyZolo

The sessions and closing dinner at this year’s meeting offered an opportunity to learn from others who have contributed to both Lighthawk’s mission and global conservation movements—through education, data collection and trend monitoring, and sharing views from very special flights around the world.

The San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) has been among the top commercial hubs in transforming its operations to those that make less of an impact both on its neighbors in the Bay Area, and globally with respect to emissions and other measurable elements. 

SFO’s Erin Cooke is the airport’s sustainability director, and she reported on the airport’s success in everything from limiting its waste streams to providing sustainable aviation fuel. Because of its efforts, SFO ranks high among U.S. airports in achieving these goals, and favorably among its international peers. Though I don’t see SFO taking steps as drastic as Amsterdam’s Schiphol (EHAM) does—such as a proviso to halt all departures if emissions reach an as-yet limit—general aviation airports can learn from its work. The big message? If we stay ahead of the imposed limits, we can keep aviation flowing while helping local environments.

The Everglades Foundation has taken advantage of a longstanding relationship with Lighthawk to capture the ever-changing landscape of central and south Florida. Steve Davis, chief science officer for the organization, updated the group on the latest at the annual meeting. Volunteer pilots in the Miami area use their aircraft—including a Gippsland AirVan—to take scientists, media, and policymakers aloft to monitor a range of concerns. From recent toxic algae blooms and red tides, to gauging the success of the Tamiami Tunnels in restoring southward water flowing from Lake Okeechobee through the ’Glades to the Keys—the photos Davis shared illustrated the power of those views from GA aircraft.

At the dinner, Zara Rutherford, of FlyZolo, told the story of her recent solo flight around the world in the Shark LSA. It took her five months—in part because she had to fly during day VFR conditions—and she crossed antipodes and northern climes. One takeaway? How much climate drives the cultures of the places she visited—and how sea level rise has already significantly impacted many coastal communities. And how human intervention—in the guise of temperature changes—has brought polar bears into town in Greenland. A local headmistress related to Rutherford how the children had to use caution now walking to school. 

Back to that View

My letter from the editor in each issue of FLYING magazine—and the opinion pieces I share online—I call “View From Above” because that has always been one of the most compelling aspects of flight to me. 

And perhaps that’s why Lighthawk’s mission instantly resonated with me—and my experience flying with longtime volunteers Kent and Milne solidified the deal.

What have you seen from the pilot’s seat that has resonated with you? I’d like to hear from you. Email me at julie@flying.media with your own “view from above.”

The post Lighthawk Gives Pilots a Reason to Cherish Their Perspective appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The TBM 940s delivered into the U.S. that qualify have been retrofitted successfully by Elliott Aviation, an aviation services and sales company with locations in Moline, Illinois; Des Moines, Iowa; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Atlanta, Georgia.

Home Safe Now Standard

The certification on the TBM 940 was completed in July 2020, and those aircraft rolling off the production line following that date came factory equipped with Home Safe as standard equipment. At the time, Daher pledged to retrofit 940 models delivered earlier in 2020 as part of the purchase price, with models delivered in 2019 available to upgrade for $85,000.

A total of 29 TBM 940s were delivered with the autoland functionality as standard equipment, but required additional work following certification in order to complete the task. Elliott Aviation  undertook the completions at its base in Moline, Illinois.

“Partnering closely with Daher from the very beginning, the Elliott Aviation team of technicians did a great job of planning and executing the installation program,” said Greg Sahr, Elliott Aviation’s president and CEO. “We knew the timeline was going to be a push, but the joint effort with Daher allowed us to complete the program as scheduled.”

A few 2019 940 models remain for which Home Safe was an upgrade, and that work will be completed later this year, according to Elliott Aviation.

“This retrofit program’s seamless execution resulted from the expertise and capabilities of Elliott Aviation, backed by its close cooperation with Daher—as well as our coordination with TBM distributors and owners,” said Raphael Maitre, vice president of customer support for Daher’s Aircraft Division, in a release.

What Is Home Safe?

Daher integrated Garmin’s Autoland technology into the TBM series beginning with the 940 model, and it continues as a factory standard installation in the new TBM 960, which gained FAA certification in June and EASA approval earlier this year.

Home Safe initiates the following steps:

• Integrates weather and terrain information to select the best airport for landing, taking into account fuel range and runway length. 
• Provides inputs to the aircraft’s flight controls and adjusts engine power settings through the touchdown phase. 
• Simultaneously activates the landing gear brakes and shuts down the engine following touchdown.

The post Elliott Aviation Completes Home Safe Upgrades to TBM 940 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Daher gave additional details on its successes in 2021, noting a total of 68 deliveries of its Kodiak 100 (17), TBM 910 (2), and TBM 940 HomeSafe (49).

In fact, it’s even better than a recovery for the TBM models, as Daher delivered only 48 TBMs total in 2019.

“We’re proud of these impressive results for Daher’s Aircraft Division in producing and delivering Kodiak and TBM aircraft—which are even more noteworthy considering the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the supply chain, its effects on the economy, and the downturn in international travel,” said Didier Kayat, CEO of Daher. 

“The perspectives for 2022 are extremely positive, and it could be the best year ever for our aircraft manufacturing activity.”

TBM By the Numbers

Daher gave insight into the regional breakdown of its 2021 TBM customers as well, with the largest number going to North America (39) or 76 percent. Europe followed, with deliveries into:

• France (2)
• U.K. (2)
• Germany (1)
• The Netherlands (1)

And two into new countries for the model, Cyprus and Denmark. 

GAMA reported that North America accounted for 52.6 percent of turboprop shipments overall last year.

Kodiak By the Numbers

The newly revised Kodiak 100—acquired three years ago by Daher—added 17 deliveries to a mix of corporate flight departments, private owners, and special missions operators. North America also accounted for the highest percentage of these sales as well.

“These solid business results underscore the attributes of our aircraft as they continue to evolve in meeting customers’ needs—especially in today’s market conditions, where quality, value, efficiency and performance are, more than ever, key deciding points,” said Nicolas Chabbert, senior vice president of Daher’s Aircraft Division. 

“This is underscored by our introduction of the numerous enhancements on the Kodiak 100 Series III for improved flight safety, greater cabin comfort, and augmented operational capabilities; as well as the HomeSafe emergency autoland system’s integration on the TBM 940, which is a general aviation safety game-changer for owners and operators.”

The post Daher Deliveries Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

With an invitation to join master ferry pilot Margrit Waltz as she helped to deliver a brand new TBM 940 from the Daher factory in Tarbes, France, to a dealer in Connecticut, we had our mission.

Fly along with us on the five legs of the journey as we highlight some of the decision making Waltz goes through, along with the specific performance criteria that allow her to make the mission a success.

The post The Transatlantic Mission Accomplished appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It was important, because in order to optimize the efficiency of a ferry flight, a professional pilot must take a number of things into consideration, including the stamina of those on board.

The TBM 940, by the book, can make route segments from Iceland to Labrador in a single hop—if the winds don’t conspire against you. But it means a leg length of roughly 1,320 nm, and a flight time at an extended range power setting that lasts nearly six hours.

I know a lot of pilots who can’t make it that long without attending to nature’s call—and this particular 940 wouldn’t have the optional potty installed—so I took Margrit’s advice and packed a selection of Depends. Just in case. 

Tarbes to Wick

Every leg would see us climb as promptly as possible to the TBM’s sweet spot (westbound) of Flight Level 280. While the airplane has a service ceiling of 31,000 msl—and might see its top speed at that height—Waltz has found almost no altitude works better. And as our discussions would reflect, regardless of the winds aloft in between. “I’ve almost never gained by stopping at a lower altitude,” she said, because the advantage in winds rarely makes up for the loss in true airspeed at lower altitudes.

I’ve spent a little bit of time flying in long cross-country races, and it also holds true that if you decide to climb for advantageous winds or true airspeeds, you want to get there as quickly as possible. Cruise climbs don’t help with overall speed.

So I wasn’t surprised when Waltz opted for a climb at 124 knots indicated upon our departure from Tarbes. We had to stop a couple of intermediate altitudes for French ATC, but otherwise she programmed autopilot and auto throttle to command the airplane straight to 28,000 feet, maintaining between 1,300 and 1,700 fpm into the mid-20s.

We shuffled past a stack of waypoints on our way to Wick to take us through U.K. airspace. Fortunately, controllers knocked off quite a few of them along the way into a more direct path. That put our time from LFBT to EGPC at 3.3 hours, seeing speeds between 315 and 322 ktas (at outside air temps of -30C to -40C) over a distance of 972 nm.

Wick to Keflavik

The next leg—from EGPC to BIKF (Keflavik, Iceland)—would be shorter, but we added two new elements to the mix: over water and approaching nightfall.

Those two items didn’t alter our plan, really, since we were already running at max cruise and at a nice, high elevation over the waves. But with 652 nm to cover against a stronger headwind (up to 50 knots on the nose), I was happy we kept the speed up.

The display on the right-hand MFD showed the sunrise and sunset times at our destination: 10:00 and 16:29 UTC—and local time, this time of year. Our ETA into Keflavik crept up to 18:54, but we had the southeastern coast of Iceland in sight as the last light of the sun went below the far horizon.

Keflavik to Iqaluit

It’s Waltz’s routine in Keflavik to determine the next day’s flight plan the night before—and fuel up—so that she can simply make an update to that the next morning. A long day lays ahead on day two for many of her crossings, if the weather otherwise cooperates. And having the overnight to think through the projected winds, ceilings, and precip helps too.

She decides that evening that we likely wouldn’t make her preferred stop of Goose Bay based on nearly 100-knot headwinds along a significant portion of the route. So we plan for Iqaluit, Nunavut (CYFB), as our landing spot in Canada, a distance of 1,193 nm. The alternate of Sondrestrom air base near the west coast of Greenland would make for an expensive stop (in terms of jet-A) but a welcome one if the winds don’t go according to plan.

Fortunately, the winds continue to perform as predicted, and slack off as we reach our decision point, abeam Sondrestrom. We need to have enough fuel on board to land with nearly an hour’s reserve, according to policy, and that’s what we have as we cross Greenland’s rugged, fjord-laden coast: 46 gallons on board predicted upon landing. We end up beating this by about 10 more gallons that we gain with slacking winds and an easy approach.

Iqaluit to Bangor

With a bit of relief, our turn at Iqaluit is quick—albeit cold—and we’re off to enter the U.S. with a stop in Bangor, Maine. The 940 could have made the leg all the way to Groton, Connecticut, our final destination, but U.S. Customs and Border Patrol kindly asks that everyone stop at the nearest point of entry (with a customs facility) upon crossing the border.

We’re still sliding along at a torque setting of 95 percent at 280 and 200 kias, for a true airspeed between 309 and 312 on the segment. It’s getting warmer, and I can feel it through the window as we track nearly south (a 200 heading after we cross the south end of the Hudson Strait).

After a friendly VFR traffic pattern at KBGR, we land and taxi straight to the customs holding area near the FBO, and wait for the also friendly officer to indicate we can open the door and show off our passports and airplane for inspection. Waltz calls for fuel and we walk over to the FBO, where we feed ourselves from the vending machines in the pilot lounge—and talk with another ferry pilot taking a Cessna 414 eastbound.

Bangor to Groton

We had one last performance metric to tick off the list, as it turned out—a maximum performance descent. While getting down quickly is important in any aircraft that trips the high-altitude flight levels, it’s an extra-special event in the 940.

Waltz gave the controller a heads-up that we might trigger an alarm at Boston Center with our upcoming descent rate. Then she said something like Watch this… and pushed the nose over to 230 knots indicated. The PFD on the Garmin G3000 showed us averaging about 3,500 fpm—and sometimes pegged at 4,000 fpm down—as ATC complied by clearing us first to FL160, then 11,000 feet, then 8,000 feet, then 6,000 feet. Yee haw! It felt like we rode down on a rail.

The strong-arm of Cape Cod came into view over the nose with the 940 pitched down 10 degrees below the horizon. St. Francis looked casual in his prime spot on the glare shield. Boston turned us toward the west for the last leg into Groton (KGON). Waltz loaded the RNAV (GPS) 23 into the Groton-New London Airport into the flight plan and soon we were direct JOGIL, then onto the initial approach segment. 

The five legs went as smoothly as one could possibly expect—with nary a hiccup from the Pratt & Whitney PT6A-64 up front. Believe me, I would have known. Pretty much everything worked, with only a couple of minor squawks to share with the folks at Columbia Air Services, the TBM dealer in Groton who would take possession of N940VF until it went on to its lucky owner.

A fortunate one, indeed.

The post A Flight by the Numbers appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Pilot Margrit Waltz has been ferrying airplanes—many of them single-engine piston mounts—for four decades. Her attention to detail—and the relationships she’s built along the way—are testimony to her success in this very specific mission.

She owes a critical part of that success to the development of routines. They give a baseline to flight operations, and let a pilot know when some element is out of place, nonstandard, abnormal, before a truly alarming circumstance arises. Boring is good.

The routines are borne from knowing “her airplane,” the TBM series, but also the route, the FBOs, the people, the procedures, and the weather patterns at various times of the year. She’s flown in every season, so this mid-November trip is not unusual. 

And she knows that Adrienne Foster at Far North Aviation in Wick, Scotland, will be there ready with a cup of tea and a selection of KitKats. 

“That’s my routine, too,” Waltz told me during one of our preparatory calls. 

When we arrived there, the KitKat was white chocolate, and the tea came with milk and sugar, by the way—a routine I could get used to.

A Special Pilot

“She is so special because she has been associated with the TBM since the beginning of the story,” said Philippe de Segovia, director of TBM promotion for Daher’s Aircraft Division. “In ’91, at that time she made the first flight with our test pilot Christian Briand, Christian had never done a ferry flight and Margrit had never flown a TBM.” And the two of them flew the first one scheduled for delivery across the pond, serial number 6.

“She has the most knowledge, and she fell in love with the TBM, so we have a special connection,” said de Segovia.

Flying the 1400th TBM overall—the latest evolution in the TBM 940—just builds upon that base of knowledge for Waltz.

Setting Up the Flight Deck

You can learn a lot about a pilot by watching them work. Waltz learned to fly when she was 18, starting in 1975. Her first ferry flight was in 1977. More than 25,000 hours later, she’s spent a significant amount of time setting up a flight deck for an extended flight overwater—or over hostile terrain. It’s all about fuel, and daylight, and airport closing times.

After she starts up the airplane for the first time in Tarbes, France, she resets all of the fields across the top menu bar on the G3000’s middle and right-hand multifunction displays. She likes to keep the PFD in front of her relatively “clean.” Uncluttered. 

The data presentation would come in most handy during our longest leg, from Keflavik, Iceland, to Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. Fuel onboard at destination, estimated time en route remaining, local time on arrival—all of immediate and continuous importance.

Also within reach from the climb out: a bag of Haribo gummies, the sour-cherry flavor you can only get in Austria, she said. Having used similar tactics to stay awake on long flights, I understood their value beyond the sugar rush they’d provide.

And we had another “friend” who joined us on the flight deck. A very special guest—a preflight gift to remind Waltz of those who care for and support her on her journeys. For this crossing, she placed on the glareshield a homemade St. Francis knit for her by a friend who is a flight attendant for TAP in Portugal. She takes a similar talisman on every trip.

It’s not really a superstition, she says, though most ferry pilots have them. Rather more like a companion to illuminate the way. 

We’d grow quite fond of him over the course of two days’ flying, which I’ll share in next week’s wrap to the series.

The post For a Ferry Pilot, Routine Is Good appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Margrit Waltz made the point clearly though we were speaking through FaceTime between Maryland and Germany, where she was staying before our trip.

Waltz has made the transatlantic crossing by light aircraft literally hundreds of times—and more than 200 of those in various TBM models—so I paid close attention.

You don’t want to show up on the ramp at Greenland in running shoes, she went on. It’s well below freezing even this early in the season. The cold will soak up through your soles.

Thus began my packing plan—over the course of two weeks—for a ferry flight that would take us from France to Connecticut in a new TBM 940 in mid-November.

I began laying out my kit in the spare bedroom, with the door closed. You have to hide these kinds of things from the dogs or they will mutiny. Or the cats will have their say in other ways.

The Layering Game

As a person who has run—“run” being a loose term—marathons in Colorado in winter, the layering concept to combat the cold that she was talking about was familiar to me. A ferry flight in an airplane with the kind of range and speed as the turboprop 940 takes you from reasonable climes (southwestern France, say) to unreasonable ones (Iqaluit, Nunavut, which is frozen solid for much of the year) in a remarkably short period of time.

So, you can’t dress too warmly, or you will sweat yourself out on the flight deck. With heated seats, the TBM provides a cosy shelter while en route, for sure. But stepping out onto the ramp without the right gloves, and scarf, and hat…etcetera—that would not work either.

I stuffed the bottom of the big Army-green duffel I’d last taken to camp as a college student with running tights, fleece pants, and base-layer turtlenecks.

Overnight in Strange Places

The second tip I heard loud and clear was from another expert ferry pilot pal, Sarah Rovner, who has written about ferrying light aircraft in winter for FLYING.

Her advice? You never know where you might end up for the night. Or for three days while a gale blows through or the freezing fog lingers long. And some of the places that present safe harbor to airplanes may be less-than-generous in their culinary offerings.

Spaghetti with ketchup for days, for example. Let’s just say that does not appeal.

“But you can always find hot water,” Rovner told me. She takes along a range of backpacker’s pantry meals—the kind of freeze-dried food that’s lightweight and stowable, and a lot easier on the palate. At least you know what you’re getting.

Combined with the en route snacks I normally take on long cross-country flights—like jerky, trail mix, dried fruit, and TicTacs—my food stores took up another layer in the canvas duffel.

Pilot-y Stuff

When the folks at Daher called me to say we were a “go,” I asked for a copy of the pilot’s operating handbook to study. I’d have lots of time to familiarize myself further once I was sitting in the right seat, but there was flight planning to think about—just for my own benefit, as Waltz handled the official flight plan as PIC—and a lot of systems to ponder through.

So, I studied the POH. Almost all 900-plus pages of it.

I also pulled out survival items such as a CO detector, space blanket, and my lucky signal mirror. I call it “lucky” because I have never had to use it.

So far, so good!

I spent many nights before departing for France thinking, overthinking, analyzing, re-analyzing, and downright dreaming about the various scenarios we could find ourselves in should something go wrong. A big part of the preparation is mental, and coming to terms with the objective hazards of the trip.

By objective hazards, I mean the ones over which you have little or no control, such as catastrophic engine failure, systems emergencies that are only solved by landing (and not solved well by ditching), unforecast weather, and sudden illness.

But ferry pilots deal with these realities—mitigating all the hazards they can, and accepting the psychological challenge posed by those that remain.

“I’m an optimist,” said Rovner in our conversation. “If you’re not, you’re sunk before you start.”

As it turns out, that was by far the toughest part of my preflight preparation.

The post View From Above: Preparations Crucial for Such a Big Trip appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

She went to Italy for three weeks—with just me along—an embrace of the culture she’d studied for her master’s degree in art, as a single woman with her daughter as a companion, directing her own itinerary.

She hopped on a Trek road bicycle in late July and crossed the state in which she grew up, during RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register’s Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa.

But her biggest undertaking that year drove her to confront a self-induced limitation she’d fought most of her life. Mom had been creating art—drawing and painting, mostly—since high school, but had never embraced the title “artist.”

To be a real artist, you have to put on an exhibit. She really wanted to—but it was scary to take that step. What if she failed? What if no one came?

As it turned out, the process of assembling the work for “50 at 50,” her exhibit at the Palette & Chisel in downtown Chicago in the autumn of that year charged her and challenged her—and transformed her.

After that event, she had little trouble calling herself an artist.

Making a Milestone

Because of…reasons, I’d cancelled all of my big plans for my 50th year.

Between the ongoing restrictions of the pandemic, and the transformation of FLYING requiring a lot of energy and engagement, I backed off from overseas travel, from going out to get my seaplane rating, from gathering friends from afar for a blow-out celebration.

I was OK with that. What you see here at FLYING as we fly forward into our future has satisfied my need to do something big. Mostly.

When I had talked with him earlier this year about conducting a We Fly pilot report on the TBM 940, Daher’s director of TBM sales promotion Philippe de Segovia proposed a compelling alternative: Instead of going to the company’s location in Pompano Beach, Florida, to fly this graceful, powerful turboprop, I could fly over to the factory in Tarbes, see a more complete demonstration—and participate in one more thing…

I was invited to join master ferry pilot Margrit Waltz in flying the latest customer airplane back to the U.S.

The Crossing, Fulfilled

But when? We made plans, only to see them vanish. Again, COVID, and the intricacies of traveling to Europe, but also owing to the changeable nature of delivery schedules and timing on my end.

In October, however, the mechanisms of the great machine clicked into alignment. Margrit would be taking serial number 1400 to Groton, Connecticut, departing on November 16. I could have the right seat if it were possible.

I was going. The dream I’ve always had of following in the contrails of pioneers before—from Amelia Earhart in her Lockheed Vega to the Douglas C-47s on their way to the European theater in the war—would come within my grasp.

My pilot’s analytical mind kicked into high gear. I had two weeks to prepare, logistically, physically, and mentally. I didn’t dare believe it would all come to pass until I was on the United flight connecting to Toulouse a few days ahead of the planned departure date.

My dear friends, it happened.

I collected so many stories along the journey—Margrit’s tales, the trip planning, the weather, the people I met at each stop…and those of the airplane herself, a marvelous flying chariot that didn’t miss a beat for more than 16 hours of flight over two days.

You’ll see these stories in the pages of our 2022 print edition of FLYING, on our social media channels, and illuminated on the digital pages of our newly launched website.

For now, here’s our start up at Tarbes on Tuesday…

And our descent over Cape Cod into New England on Wednesday.

Join me for the rest of the journey.

The post View From Above: The Crossing appeared first on FLYING Magazine.