Let the record show that Wednesday November 18th was one of this year's most perfect days. It was sunny, pleasant, and calm. With summer long gone and winter not yet arrived, it was one of those interlude days that help us make the change gracefully. It was my day off, so I just had to go flying.

My wife accepts that I hold "my" flying in a separate category from the flying I do during the rest of the week. I enjoy flying with students, and showing them all the things about airplanes, but from time to time, I have to get out on my own and point the nose in one direction for more than a few minutes at a time. It is refreshing to be whimsical rather than responsible, if only for a moment or two.

There is something that draws me to my little red plane. Maybe it restores my faith in the simple things of life. It has no radios, few instruments, a small engine, and a big wing. Maybe I like to fly it just to remind people that flying does not require a stack of radios, oodles of round dials, and a big runway. Sometimes people seem to be focused on accouterments, yet ignorant of the essentials.

Flight in that airplane is focused outside of it, and sometimes I feel as though I am sitting on aviation's front porch as I fly along. Just hopping around the area, I often see acquaintances working outside their homes, or they may notice me as I fly over. Sometimes strangers wave as I pass by them. The old planes of the thirties and forties seem to radiate an aura of friendliness and welcome that breaks down the barriers between strangers.

Last week it happened that I had to kill an hour on a maintenance flight in a Piper Aztec. For lack of a better plan, I flew to many of the places I normally "visit" with my plane, but it wasn't the same. At 160 MPH the trip was much quicker than usual, but the people and places went by so quickly. A circle over a friend's house at 80 MPH is so much closer than the same circle at twice the speed and six times the horsepower. Such a fancy plane as that does a good job of saying goodbye, but is not so great at saying hello.

On that perfect Wednesday I sat in my front-porch airplane and flew around saying hello. As I swung around to land on one of the many local grass strips, I glided over a hunter walking past a grove of young aspen trees. He looked up and waved, and I waved back at him... and the deer that was quietly bedded just thirty feet from him! It was a picture with a hundred stories framed by the gentle and timeless day.

It was as if the plane had transported me back to the time of its youth and flown me through a Norman Rockwell painting.