Welcome to Haught Air

And so the big day has finally arrived. Dear husband is in the air, getting the hours he needs with an instructor to get his new-to-us Beech Bonanza V-tail insured. The policy requires that he have ten hours flying in his plane with a certified flight instructor.

Herb got his pilot's license back in the early 80s, but he hasn't flown in 20 years until this year when he renewed his license with an instructor in Bartlesville, OK. His parents and mine owned planes, so he used to fly a lot. He and my dad logged tons of hours together and had a blast doing some limited aerobatics. When Herb and I were at college in Auburn, Dad would take us to faraway places for breaks. I think a lot of the motivation was that he just loved having Herb as co-pilot, someone he could talk physics to who shared his passion for flying.

But I digress. Herb got his license renewal completed last week in a rented Cessna 172. A recent furlough of Cessna test pilots in Independence, KS, about 20 minutes north of us, blessed him with a local pilot with experience "out the wazoo" to get him checked out in his Bonanza.

It's been a long wait.

Herb was building a kit plane, an RV-6, but he just never had the time to complete it. One of the big drivers for purchasing our last home in Texas was that it had a grass strip and a hangar. Sadly, the runway never got used. Last year we started looking for property with a building on it where Herb could finish the RV-6. We even had a contract on one that would have been perfect and solved some other storage problems we have now that we live in a subdivision instead of on rural acreage. But the seller decided that he did not want to remove the "junk", and so the deal fell through. At that point I told Herb that I would rather him buy a plane that is ready to fly rather than spend money on property and still have to invest so much time and money in getting the RV-6 completed. Herb jumped on that suggestion. I feel bad now. I think that is probably what he wanted to do all along, but I am always so careful about money that he didn't even consider that I would be open to it, much less encourage it.

I can't remember exactly when the Bonanza purchase was made, but it was right when the Rona was descending on this country--middle of March, I guess. Its home was a small town in New York. By the time we had the inspection done, the country was shut down, and no one wanted to fly to New York to ferry the plane back for us. It was pretty awful. As the weeks dragged by, I began to wonder whether we would ever be able to get it. Herb was never worried, though. God bless him. I need his steady confidence so much.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the pilots that Herb had dealings with in New York let him know that a plane was being ferried into the airport where Herb's plane was, and that the ferry pilot would like to fly the Bonanza down to Coffeyville for us. O happy day! Herb made all the arrangements, and we met our plane for the first time at the Coffeyville airport. We stood on the tarmac, pretty much vibrating with anticipation, and watched it approach and land. It was so exciting! When the ferry pilot taxied toward us, tears sprang to my eyes--a combination of relief, happiness for Herb's dream coming true, and poignant memories of my dad and his beloved Bonanza.

The ferry pilot was surprised to learn that Herb had never seen the plane in person, and so right away he offered to take Herb up in it, even though the ferry pilot had been flying most of the day. Herb accepted, and I was overcome with joy watching them take off. They invited me to go, but I just wanted Herb to have that experience.  I guess they were gone for about 20 minutes. The sun was setting as they landed, the perfect ending for this historic day. Herb reported that everything about the plane was as advertised and that it flew like a dream. Since then, he has visited it three times, twice taxiing it around and imagining what it will be like to be able to take off as pilot-in-command.

Herb getting in for the first time.

I'm hoping that Herb gets at least two hours with the instructor today. We are eager to fly to Florida to visit Herb's parents. The test pilot has ten days completely open starting next week. So many possibilities flood my mind now. And gratitude, heaps and heaps of gratitude.