Buddy pilot

Last year, in ground school, I met another student pilot named Doug. During our flight training, we'd often see each other at the airport. He finished about 3 months before me and we've kept in touch thanks to social media and the occasional coincidental plane rental booking times. A couple of times, we commented on each other's social media postings, saying we should fly together sometime. Eventually I figured we should actually go and do that so I asked him if he wanted to book a time. So, yesterday we flew from Cooking Lake to Drumheller, 117 NM to the south. It was fantastic!

Taking off out of Drumheller; Doug in command

The town of Drumheller in the Red Deer River valley

The weather was awful in the days leading up to our flight and even on the morning of our booking, it was questionable. We watched the forecast and weather reports right up until we had to head out to the airport and finally decided it was worth a try. At the airport, the weather seemed dicey due to some very low scattered cloud. We conferred with a couple of the flight instructors and everyone agreed we should go up, see what it was like, and turn back if it was no good.

The low cloud kept us at only 1000 ft above ground level for most of the way down but other than that, the weather was no issue. Visibility was perfect and the views were beautiful. By the time we left Drumheller, the clouds had lifted a bit and we were able to come back at 3500 ft above ground. The views were even more amazing at that altitude!

We had a blast! What was great was that we were able to confess some of our stupid moments from our flight training as well as some of the things we still worry about. Learning to fly can be an isolating experience because you don't spend much time with other students, it's scary to confess your fears to others, and you can't judge whether you're doing alright. So it was awesome to just lay it all out there with each other as we flew along! What you find out when you open up and talk is that you aren't the only one! Besides being a confessional experience, it was also very reassuring to fly with another pilot who is at the same level. We were able to ask each other questions and talk about how we each did things. Both of us said that the nervousness we usually feel before we fly was completely gone with each other there. I flew us down to Drumheller and he flew us back. Neither of us helped each other very much, other than general how-do-you-do-things discussions and questions, but just knowing that there was someone there who had my back was comforting and he said he felt the same way.

I found it to be such a relief to fly with him. Plus, it was just super fun. Drumheller is beautiful, too, located in the badlands of southern Alberta, so it was a stunning place to visit, if only for a few minutes. And what's more is we actually made it! We aviated and navigated and communicated without any issue. We do know how to do this. But it sure is nice to have a buddy pilot.