Summer, glorious summer! It snuck right up on me. Sailing the relentlessly sunny Caribbean for seven months aboard Windbird, the pageantry of northern seasons played out distantly across the flickering screens of muted beach-bar TVs: Halloween horror flicks, cable-news Snowmageddons, Yankees-Red Sox at Fenway Park. So when Dawn and I hurricane-prepped and hauled Windbird at a Puerto Rican boatyard in June and flew home to Minnesota, our abrupt return to the land of seasons caught me a little flat-footed. Having survived the long winter we elected to skip, friends and family were excitedly shaking off their winter doldrums and basking in the golden euphoria of a freshly blossomed summer.
A Quest for Flight Across Two Continents
Key Takeaways:
- The author, an airline pilot, found it unexpectedly difficult to arrange for single-engine aircraft rental or instruction in the U.S. during his summer leave due to short notice and flight school specialization.
- During a layover in Frankfurt, Germany, he discovered Flugplatz Mainz-Finthen, a small airport offering various flight schools, where he was able to fly an Ikarus C42 microlight.
- The German flying experience was successful, surprisingly affordable, and provided a unique perspective on the Rhineland, leading him to plan for future flights there.
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