AZ Imagined: Flying Time

*click the title for my ubiquitously-overflowing high-resolution gallery*

Surely, one of my unanswered callings in life was to be a pilot. I love flying! Airports, not so much, though I've never had the thrill beyond the window seat of commercial flights (except for an initiation to skydiving). Kirsteen has long been bewildered by my ability to recognize what we are flying over..."Hey, honey, there's that 4-wheel drive road we took out of Perkinsville last year!"

She's like, "How do you do that?" It seems to be a bit of sixth sense, but I do better flying over places I have been to on the ground. Back in the day, I tracked a few flights with my GPS unit and would later check topographic software to confirm features in my window-seat photos. Then one day I got a polite request not to engage in that activity (messes with the communications, ya know). Luckily, Google Earth has proven to be an adequate substitute for figuring out our ground-track. Nobody has bugged me about the camera yet, but I wonder if the paranoia will catch up with that someday?

I would have loved to learn to fly a small open aircraft like Adriel Heisey does. He makes his living both as a pilot and a photographer, having built his airplane that puts his own body at the nose. It must be an incredible sensation of flight.

Here's a selection of images from the gallery...