Page 10 - April 2017 Twin & Turbine

Sometimes the act of giving back comes in small packages. This Angel Flight passenger discovered the fun of ight while receiving transportation on Joe’s Citation Mustang.
If you’re like me, you want to pay it forward. You want your good fortune to benefit those who need it most. If it could be combined with flying, all the better.
My goal in writing a series on charitable flying is simple: to encourage more cabin-class and turbine aircraft pilots to consider flying for charitable organizations, even if it is just a few times each year. I’m not going to promote any one organization over any of the others. Rather, I simply hope that you will come away with a curiosity and desire to connect with at least one of the many charitable flight organizations that might fit your passion for helping others. I’ll provide a list of organizations in the final installment of this series.
This month I’ll cover the “why” of flying for charitable flight organizations. In the next installment, I’ll cover the “how,” and after that I’ll wrap it up with a final installment on the “who” in charitable flying.
Before I make a case for why YOU should explore becoming a volunteer pilot for one of these organizations, indulge me for a moment as I tell you how I got into charitable flying for Angel Flight Central.
As a newly minted private pilot in the summer of 2009, I rolled directly into training for my Instrument rating. As I contemplated all the freedom that seemed to come from being a pilot, I came across a Saratoga TC II for sale at my local airport. This was an amazing machine with not too many hours and a beautiful Garmin G1000 avionics package. That seemed like the
Covington Half Page 4/C Ad
www.covingtonaircraft.com
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8 • TWIN & TURBINE
April 2017