At the end of last month, my mother decided to pay a visit to the grandchildren as a change of scenery, On May 31, I took her on a short flight along the Chicago shoreline. I expected it to be a somewhat bumpy day given the weather - gusty winds and somewhat low ceilings (although just fine given all the higher we could get to avoid KORD's Bravo airspace) for example. My mother likes roller coasters, but I was not sure how she'd feel about the flight. "If you say it's safe, then it's up to you." She knew what she was getting into.
She watched as I carefully pre-flighted our G1000-equipped Skyhawk, and she had a few questions as we light the fires and taxied out to Runway 23 at KUGN. She also took my request that she tell me know about traffic just a bit too seriously. Soon we were off and climbing out to our final altitude of 2500 MSL.
It was fun to point out so many of the sights - Baha'i temple, Northwestern University, the mall near my home, the high school my kids will attend, the Hancock Building, Sears Tower, Navy Pier, University of Chicago, and of course the area once called Meigs field. Unfortunately, the filthy windscreen made for lousy pictures.
We landed at Gary KGYY, and I shut down long enough to clean the windshield for our return flight. We were off once again and looked at our sights again (along with some different ones). As we entered the downwind for 23, I was looking for the Diamond in which I had done a lot of my training. The winds were quite squirrley, so I was thinking that the instructor on board that plane was about to have some fun. Not a bad landing overall.
So, mom enjoyed her first flight in a small plane and is looking forward to her next adventure.
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