Night

My awesome instructor moved on to a new job about two weeks before I did my flight test. I spent the last couple weeks flying with the chief flight instructor anyway for my flight test prep and I was just grateful that my instructor had been able to see me through my lessons. For a month he flew with a company up north and then he got scooped up by a regional airline and moved to the coast. Even though I was finished my lessons, I was sad to see him go. I was very happy, then, to have a chance to fly with him again at the end of July. It was partly just an excuse to fly together and partly a chance for me to get familiar with the one plane at my flight school that was different and I had never flown. We decided to make it my first night lesson to make it even more worth it.

Wow! It is fabulous to fly at night! It's so calm and peaceful. On this night, we took off just at sunset so we could watch the transition to night from the air. We didn't do anything complicated but it gave me a chance to experience the different perspective and feeling of flying in the dark. Perhaps the conditions made it so but we were both feeling a bit philosophical and we talked about how amazing flying is and what it teaches you about life. 

It was a pleasure and a treat to have another chance to fly with my instructor and it was truly a surreal experience to be flying at night.

We have tried twice since then to schedule another night lesson but it has been too complicated for him to manage now that he has another job. This evening, after the second attempt to book something, we realized that this is probably not going to work out anymore. He is moving onward and upward and so am I, both of us into new adventures. My night lessons will continue with another instructor.