Best Day of Flying - Missed with answered prayer
I have not been keeping up on my “Best Day of Flying” stories as I wanted to. I expected to have several up by now, but I have been busy with other things. There will be more to come very soon. In the meantime I want to tell you about a great few days of flying that I almost got.
I received an email from the local aero club last week. A fellow member was moving to Alaska and needed his Cessna 172 delivered to Alaska. He could not supply anything other than fuel money, therefore the person delivering the plane would have to get home on their own dime. I have not been active enough flying to feel comfortable making a trip like this alone, but figured I could round up a seasoned pilot friend to join me. I found out while searching for a co-pilot that this trip would take about 50 hours of flying time. This was much more than I thought and I learned that the owner would be okay if we could just get the plane to Montana. He felt he could get it to Alaska pretty easy from Montana. I really wanted to try the Alaska trip, but knew I could not possibly e away for more than a couple of days. I did some calculations and found that I could get the plane to Montana in about 16 hours of flying. This could easily be done over a long weekend with two guys sharing the effort even with some mild delays. I saw this as a great adventure and training opportunity as long as I had the right person with me. The owner needed the pane moved immediately to get the plane up to Alaska before the winter weather sets in. I started looking again for a friend.
I knew I could probable get two people home on flyer miles. I have enough flyer miles for at least a couple of free round trip tickets on different airlines. I figured it was worth burning a couple of tickets to get this type of experience even if only to Montana.
I did find a pilot friend/instructor to go along, but he needed to ask his wife. I told him that I needed to ask my wife if I could be away for a few days too. I knew that she would encourage me to go since she has been trying to get me to take some time for myself to go flying for a while now. She did, but reminded me that we should pray about it.
God spoke pretty clearly once again as he has with many other situations in my life lately. First of all I found that none of the airlines had one-way reward tickets to Charleston, SC out of anywhere in Montana. The even more convincing answer was from the phone call I received from my friend. He barely got a chance to talk to his wife before they received a call that his wife’s grandfather had passed away. God spoke pretty clearly to me in this matter I do believe.
I will not be writing about a “Best Day of Flying” to Montana. It was a great dream while it lasted.