Meynard the Medicine Man

Last November, I texted Meynard, needing therapy.  I was in Bangkok, after a rough month at work, too much travel. Meynard is my aerobatics instructor. He replied by text… .    “We can use the Decathlon as a psychiatric couch.  Combinations this time.  Cuban 8s and Immelmans.  Sequence of 6 maneuvers.”    Salvation!  My home leave was only three weeks […]

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A Million Shades of Blue. A State of Bliss. Awesome Sauce!

      I wrote one of my favorite articles, Thy Youth is Restored Like the Eagle’s, in 2007.  She found it four years later and posted a comment that got my attention.  We fly the same magic carpet – the aerobatic Super Decathlon.                                                                 Christina secretly loved airplanes and longed to fly.  […]

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Disturbing Video

  It’s a jerky video, but you can hear me panting and groaning, on my back, rolling around.  At times I’m even upside down.  Passion.  At the end, you can clearly see and hear me giggling perversely. The person I was with wasn’t even a woman.                My favorite radio call in […]

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I Acquire an Unusual Attitude

Carlo continues his story of flying with Meynard.  Over the course of two days, he is bombarded with new epiphanies on the theory and practice of flight.              The g-forces squeeze me into my seat as Meynard takes us through a loop, an aileron roll, a spin, and a hammerhead.  I follow […]

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And We Haven’t Even Started Maneuvering Yet!

Carlo continues his story of flying with Meynard for the first time.  In two days he learns more about aerodynamics than most pilots do in years.  He is in a fabric-covered aerobatic airplane, yet his best lessons have nothing to do with maneuvering flight.             There was a large, yellow, thing in the […]

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Slow Learners

Carlo is wants to learn how to fly and land as many things as possible.  Tonet wants to compete in aerobatics. On the list of things yet to earn are Italian cooking credentials, Carlo’s master’s degree, Tonet’s A&P license, beginner’s sexual techniques, advanced cocktails. Some of the learning happen accidentally.  Or near-accidentally.  (We don’t plan […]

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Real Men Do It Upside Down!

 So there we were, behind schedule.  The gusting winds had grounded the hot air balloons, skydivers and paragliders.   The crazed windsock threatened to rip itself off its pole and blow away altogether. The morose crowd packed the ramp.   Buddy Lopa, our untiring “Voice of the Fiesta” Program Director, kept apologizing for the wind. We were stressed!  The airshow […]

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Our Best Stories

Carlo and I have this special place for our favorite stories.  About the sheer joy of flying, sex, airplanes, Angelina Jolie, death and taxes (that one was originally written on the back of a paper napkin!).  That just about covers a pilot’s life. Have fun with Our Favorite Posts!                                                                                             […]

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Thy Youth Is Restored Like the Eagle’s

Meynard’s Basic Aerobatic course was almost over.  I now had 9 hours of taildragger and aerobatic time, nearly 3 hours in the last sortie alone.  On graduation day, I practiced vertical maneuvers — loops and hammerheads.  Then came the graduation exercise.                                 Graduation day was CAVOK after rain the previous day, and we regrouped for […]

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The Secret Love Triangle Between Pitch, Bank and Airspeed

              What a kick it was to call on the radio: “Manila approach, one six niner one is Tango four at two thousand feet, commencing aerobatic maneuvers from two thousand to three thousand feet.” Meynard and I practiced aerobatics at Tango 4, a training area 20 miles south of Manila.  Here we did spins, loops, rolls […]

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