Making my way across the country in May, I enjoyed an involuntary extended stay in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after the failure of a servo on my autopilot. The Beech Bonanza was airworthy, sure, but I’m not interested in hand flying over a thermal-laden desert landscape for hours on end. Been there, done that. And with the Writers Guild of America being on strike, I was in no rush to get home anyway.
Waiting for the parts to arrive, I called someone I met a few years earlier when I was stuck in Albuquerque during COVID-19. Back then, Brandon Maestas was the in-house avionics guru at Santa Fe Aero Services, and he got my Garmin software updates squared away while we all waited for the world to come back. It was nice having some order in an otherwise chaotic moment in all our lives. I recalled him being a smart technician and getting things done quickly and cleanly. You remember people like that when they touch your airplane.
