Welcome to America, Joar
I had a unique flying experience last night…
A friend of mine (Keri) had a friend visiting her this week. This friend of Keri’s came all the way over from Norway to hang out for a while. His name is Joar. That’s pronounced like “You are” in case you’re like me and aren’t fluent in Norwegian.
So Keri, Joar, some other friends, and I headed out to Red Robin last night to chill for a while and get some of their fantastic burgers. Keri had told Joar earlier that I am a pilot, so I offered to take him flying sometime before he left to return home to Norway.
After dinner we started talking about when to go flying and it didn’t seem like our schedules lined up very well. Finally I just thought, “Hey, why not go right now?” It was almost 10 p.m., but I’m a night owl, I don’t mind staying out late.
So we headed to the airport to go flying.
On the drive out, we got chatting about about flying and the differences between American and European aviation.
Joar confirmed what I’ve heard from many others, how there isn’t much general aviation in Europe. What little there is only exists among very wealthy people. I guess that’s understandable–considering the price of regular auto gas is $8/gallon in Norway, I can’t imagine how expensive 100LL must be.
It made me that much happier to take him flying, knowing he might not have a chance to experience aviation the way many Americans can. I love taking new people flying, but flying with a European guy is icing on the cake.
It also reminded me of how amazing of a system we have here in the U.S. A lot of times American pilots, myself included, get so caught up with complaining about the price of insurance, gas, stupid TSA security rules, privatized ATC, etc. that we lose sight of how fortunate we are to be flying in the United States.
We have *so* much freedom here that we forget about. By the time we got my plane fired up the control tower had closed for the night, so it was just a matter of taxiing out across this big Class C airport, announcing our takeoff, and blasting off in to the night.
Joar was surprised at how easy and simple it all was. Drive up to a hangar, pull the plane out, and go flying. Go where we want, when we want. Simple as driving a car. And really, that’s how 90% of general aviation flying in America still is. Oh, and a regular guy like me, making less than $25k/year, can afford it, to. That’s pretty sweet.
I let him take the controls and we just cruised around for half an hour, checking out the sights of Lincoln from the air. It couldn’t have been more peaceful up there, drifting around over the city on a clear, calm winter night with the glow of street lights underneath us.
Oh, and another perk of taking him flying? He said he’d show me around his hometown in Norway whenever I get a chance to head over there. Hopefully I’ll be able to take him up on his offer some day.
Here we are, after putting the plane away on another frigid (15 degree) December night in Nebraska:
Have fun, and stay warm out there!
December 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Hey Jameson! Thanks for taking me for a trip “up in the sky” (don’t know if you say it like that over there). It was fabulous!!!
December 10th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I got to do a similar thing to this a couple of years ago in May–I took the task force boy’s dean (who was from Argentina) for a flight around the metropolis of Hamburg, on the day before he was leaving to go back home to South America. It was really cool too, showing him the sights from a higher perspective of the area where he had lived for the past 10 months. I let him take the controls for quite a while, too.
Yes, showing aviation to newcomers is a rewarding experience.