A new flying year begins!

Here's a vista that gladdens a pilot's heart:  blue sky, clear apron, open runway, and a plane ready to fly:

Soon we too will be airborne.

It is rare to see visiting aircraft in Nakusp.  Taking off was a student, on a cross-country out of Nelson.  We have a soft spot for this rental plane because it contains our old wingtips - sold when we replaced them with strobes and landing lights.  We can't always spot other aircraft, but everyone can now see us!

Where did we go, in celebration of a fine day?  A two and a half hour circle trip, captured in this Spot Adventure: 
https://www.findmespot.com/spotadventures/index.php/view_adventure?tripid=320415

My favourite image:  sharing the peaks with a cloud layer at 8,5000 feet.

Here is a strange panorama (yes, Bill is flying the plane, but no, he is not that dangerously thin!), taken in the Incomopleaux Valley.

Incomopleaux panorama

 

Flying High - no plane!

Over the beach in Ixtapa

As soon as I saw the paraglide operation on our Mexican beach, I issued a family challenge:  who wanted to join me in the air?  Bill can't understand why anyone would want to jump out of a perfectly functioning plane, so the idea of being towed behind a boat sure didn't appeal to him.  Jay, Chris and Julie took up the challenge, with Chris so confident of a dry landing that he brought his camera along for the ride:

looking back on takeoff

landing ahead

Grandma's takeoff and landing were captured in these videos:

An exhilarating experience!