Achievement unlocked: take your father flying in your airplane

My father obtained his private pilot license about two years before I was born. At the time, he was living near Reno, and working at Reno Airport as an air traffic controller. A few years after I was born, we moved to southern California. When he sold our house, my father accepted a 1947 Taylorcraft as partial payment. I distinctly remember seeing that airplane at that house. I think it was after we had moved, and we were visiting. Because the house was outside Reno proper, and in a sparsely populated area, you could land and take off using the road.

Over the years he had it, he kept at a few different airports. I remember one small airport he had it at for a time, Lake Wohlford Resort Airport (8CL1) not far from Escondido. Located on the top of a hill, and with a runway only 1345 feet in length, you had to know what you were doing to land there, and it was best if you had a small, slow airplane like Dad's Taylorcraft, or the Cessna 140 that a friend of his owned.

My father took me flying many times in that little plane. We would sometimes go alone, and sometimes would go with friends of his who had their own airplanes. It was flying in just about its purest form.

In 1979, my father purchased a brand new Cessna 172 Skyhawk II. It was a beautiful plane. Unfortunately, I only got to go flying in it a few times. My father had it on leaseback, to help afford it. Because of this, we had to schedule it just like everyone else. It was popular, and almost always booked.

Life happened, and we had to sell both airplanes. My father always wanted to own another one, but it never came to pass. He did get to go flying, renting planes or going up with friends, but it wasn't the same as it would have been in his own plane.

When I got my PPL back in 2003, I rented a 172 from Snohomish Flying Service and took him and my wife flying. We only went that one time. He since moved to Arizona, and I don't see him as often as I used to. He's also getting up there in years, though he has been up to visit a couple times. Even so, I couldn't take him flying as my license wasn't current.

Well, it's current now, and I now own my own aircraft. My father and my brother are visiting for several days. I have finally done something I've been wanting to do for years, even decades: I've taken my father flying in my own airplane.

It's hard to describe the feeling. I'm proud, thankful, elated, melancholy, and a host of other emotions all rolled into a bundle. But the most prominent is happiness, that I was finally able to do this. Doing this has made it all worthwhile. I could lose the plane tomorrow and it would still have been worth it.

Here are a few pictures of Dad in the plane. Of course I let him take the controls for a bit.