Veteran’s Day Flyby

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Colleague Mary Grady e-mailed this morning noting that she was having trouble finding Veteran’s Day-related aviation news stories. So as a veteran myself and in the name of veterans everywhere, I dashed off to the airport to actually fly an airplane for no other reason than the sheer joy of spewing a little lead and carbon dioxide into the air. Editor flies airplane. Big news day.For at least the past 25 years, I have vowed to take Veteran’s Day off, but I have never managed to do it. Even today, I could only spare a couple of hours. But it was 80 degrees here in Florida, with a bright blue sky-perfect Cub weather.Being a sort of goal-oriented person, I actually do try to work on some technique or skill during each flight. Since my three-pointers kind of suck if I don’t practice them regularly, I worked on that. From the you-gotta-be-kidding-arcane-skill file, I’ve also been polishing my ability to turn on the carb heat with my right foot. The reason for this is that our Cub has shoulder harnesses, but if you wear them, you can’t reach the carb heat. For this reason, for the longest time, I wasn’t wearing them at all. Then I realized that’s really dumb. So now that I’ve got the foot thing figured out, wear the shoulder straps on every flight. (What a marvelously adaptable animal is homo the sap, eh?)Also, Lightspeed sent me a new Zulu.2 for editorial evaluation. It’s Bluetooth-equipped, of course, so it pairs right up with an iPhone. I have a special rhythm and blues mix for Cub flying. Very sweet. So technically, I was actually hard at work on product evaluation. (The headset is terrific by the way; I like wind in the face, but not the noise.)Last, and really the point of this blather, I tip my hat to all the veterans who are reading this. You have never been thanked enough and you can never be thanked enough for your service. On this day, your day, there may be no aviation-related veteran’s news, but that’s no reason not to make some up. Shoot, I might go flying again tomorrow for a little second-day coverage.

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