Humans just are not well suited for being bored for long periods of time. This has implications for aviation safety.

Flying commercial is getting more and more miserable. Flying your own plane is a lot more fun, and maybe not as expensive as you might think.

How many clients do I need to sign up to afford a Citation X?

We've sold N620CP, and tomorrow the new owner will arrive in Minneapolis to take it to its new home in California. We've had this plane longer than our kids, and it feels a little like a member of the family.

We have a buyer for N620CP. It took only a few days after listing in Trade-a-Plane to get a serious offer (with deposit) for our beloved Archer, and if all goes well, she may be winging her way to California by the end of the week. The plane will be in for the buyer's inspection most of this week, so I took her up for what may be my last flight last night.

This has been in the back of my brain for a while now--since the twins were born, really--but it recently decided to move to my frontal cortex.

I think it is time to sell my airplane.

A family of five traveling in an airplane with four seats presents certain obvious problems. As a result, we've not been flying with the whole family since before the twins were born. While She Who Puts Up With Me and I have been on a couple trips (such as our Gunflint weekend a few weeks ago), we haven't taken any of the kids up with us for something like two and a half years. The last time Scooter (now five) was flying was when he was two, and he had completely forgotten the experience. The twins have never been flying in our plane.

I've had my pilot's license since I turned 17--my first license was actually dated my 17th birthday--even though it isn't something I would ever consider doing as a job. Some things are too much fun to ruin by doing them for money. Shortly after we were married, I convinced She Who Puts Up With Me to get her license, too. Not long after that, I got my instrument rating, and we realized that it made sense for us to buy an airplane.

So, in 1995, we found a 1979 Piper Archer II , a basic four-place single-engine airplane with enough oomph to be fun to fly, but not so complex as to be expensive or difficult to fly. It was literally owned by a farmer who flew it only occasionally, and was willing to be convinced to sell it. Mechanically, the airplane was in excellent condition, but it needed new paint, upholstery, and radios.

I had been planning a little afternoon flight today, taking advantage of the slightly slower pace of the quasi-holiday to complete an Instrument Proficiency Check. Anyone who had spent much time in aviation knows that airplanes only appear to fly because they're sitting on a 30,000-foot stack of paperwork. Nevertheless, I was unprepared for what was lurking in the flight school's business office.