Vowing to fly together
>A backcountry pilot takes a bride
The Bushman wedding
The groom had spent his last night single flying into and then pulling and pushing his aircraft through a farm field.
We first met Kyle Bushman covering the story of the transformation of his friend Jeff Whiteley’s 1958 Cessna 175 Skylark to a backcountry beast (“Beauty or the Beast?” June 2020 AOPA Pilot). Bushman owns Ragwood Refactory in Creswell, Oregon, and he has become a sought-after “airplane whisperer” offering remarkable restorations, modifications, and advice to aircraft owners across the world (he has gone to Dubai twice now to help with a Cub restoration there). He is also a proponent of backcountry flying, an avid supporter of STOL Drag and the High Sierra Fly-In, and a social media influencer whose message is always about the joy of being a part of the aviation community. But on this day in September 2022, he became Katie’s husband.
She’s not a pilot (yet), but she is his greatest fan. To get the N3N to the wedding venue, “Katie and I worked on clearing the fence of blackberries and pulling up fence posts. We were able to lay down the fence, dropped a sheet of plywood over the barbed wire, and brought it on over,” said Bushman.
The hundred or so guests enjoyed the outdoor ceremony, food, friends, and dancing. “The amount of love and friendship that was in the air had me at a loss for words several times,” said Bushman. “I never cried so many times with so many different people. It was an overwhelming thing to have all your friends and family from so many different walks of life all at the same place and time. We really felt the love.”
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