Flying Carpet

In search of acceptance

"Are you kidding?" replied my wife, Jean. "That's snow, the same 'white stuff' you just left in Wisconsin!" We all laughed. It was Dave and Barb's first visit to the Southwest, and after sweating through a hot desert hike the previous day near Phoenix, snow was the last thing they expected to find 45 minutes away by Flying Carpet. Of course that's the magic of elevation--Phoenix lies at 1,200 feet, while our Flagstaff destination floated at 7,000.

Today's flight was just the latest in a 30-year journey of getting to know my in-laws. From the beginning I had little in common with Jean's family. Although good people, their tastes and background differed greatly from mine. They were diehard football fans, while I favored foreign films and art museums. They liked partying 'til dawn, while I was a one-beer-over-dinner guy. Their immaculate home offered reading material only in the bathrooms, while I came from a house cluttered with books and magazines. Talk radio and TV sports dominated their living room, while classical music pervaded my parents' abode. Most painfully, I soon concluded that Jean's dad was a no-baloney type of guy, and in his eyes everything that interested me seemed to be baloney. That included my passion for piloting.

Over years of picking us up at the airport, however, my father-in-law apparently developed some appreciation for the merits of flying. He never came out and said so, but one day he astonished Jean and me by asking that I fly him from our then-home in Indiana to a business meeting in Columbus, Ohio. I reserved the flying club Cessna 210 and mustered every ounce of private-pilot professionalism to deliver a perfect ride.

It must have worked. Although there'd been no takers when I invited other family members to join us for the drop-off flight, a few days later Jean's twin sister volunteered for the return trip to pick him up. Until then Jo had expressed only trepidation about our flying activities, but apparently her dad's satisfaction with my performance inspired new confidence.

I remember we flew on instruments that day to Columbus. There's no greater thrill than bursting through cold grey clouds into a warm blue sky, and Jo was suitably impressed by the serenity of soaring atop a cottony deck. We reentered the clouds at Columbus on radar vectors for an instrument approach and were just turning final when Jo rattled us from the back seat with an ear-shattering shriek followed by laughter. Of course no one can sense an airplane's attitude in the soup, so plummeting from clouds in the midst of a turn had startled our novice passenger.

Jean's dad treated me more warmly following that trip, and after we moved West Jo enthusiastically joined us aloft during Arizona visits. In fact, my sister-in-law's first flight over the Copper State did more to enhance my family standing than anything I could have contrived. We flew that day from Phoenix to Sierra Vista in southern Arizona, and then traveled by rental car to the famed and dusty streets of old Tombstone. For the afternoon I'd garnered hard-to-get Kartchner Caverns tickets; even after I misjudged the driving distance and nearly missed our precious appointment, it was a wonderful day.

But the big event from a family standpoint actually occurred when we first landed at Sierra Vista Municipal Airport. We had just tied down the Flying Carpet when a young man intercepted us on the ramp. "Aren't you Greg Brown from Flight Training magazine?" he asked breathlessly. "Would you autograph this book for me?" Never before or since have I enjoyed such a greeting, and oh, the glory of having it transpire in front of my sister-in-law. Despite Jean's undisguised skepticism--"Did my husband call ahead and tell you to do that?" she asked the poor guy--word of the event soon trickled back through her family.

Not long afterward, when Jean's mother faced a sad mission to visit a dying friend in the mountain town of Show Low, she asked me to fly her there. Happier aerial adventures followed in celebration of her birthday and Mother's Day.

That left only my wife's brothers I hadn't flown with. Interestingly, both Steve and Dave had qualified as pilots over the years, but neither stuck with it. Last spring Steve came to Phoenix to run a marathon. Jean was still at work when he arrived, so the two of us made a lunch excursion to Tucson's Ryan Field. Incredibly, it was our first one-on-one visit over all these years, and though the food was forgettable our flight and conversation will long be remembered.

Now came Dave and his wife, Barb, on their vacation trip. After joining one of our sons for lunch in Flagstaff, we circled down over the stone spires of Oak Creek Canyon to hike at Sedona. Dave hadn't flown for many years, so along with the scenery he was intrigued by the modern-day advances in our cockpit. Since then he has begun studying to become current again as a pilot.

To this day it's occasionally challenging for me to sustain meaningful conversation with some of Jean's relatives. But over time flying has proven something unique that I could share with them, and a skill they learned to respect in me during the early days when I desperately sought credibility within their family. As time burnishes our relationships, I see that piloting has been the one special thing I could offer my in-laws in addition to loving Jean, and it's been more than a small ticket toward family acceptance.

Now, if only I could earn similar respect in my own family. My brother's visiting next month...I wonder if that nice fellow still works down at Sierra Vista?

Greg Brown was the 2000 National Flight Instructor of the Year. His books include Flying Carpet, The Savvy Flight Instructor, The Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual, Job Hunting for Pilots, and You Can Fly! Visit his Web site.