Welcome 2020
We are just coming off of a good year in 2019, looking forward to an even better year in 2020! One of the things I like most about the Holiday Season that we just experienced is the “Spirit of Giving and Friendship” that goes along with that time of the year. While there were office parties galore, there were also gatherings of pilots and aviation friends who had a chance to reflect over the past year, a chance to experience the terrific thing we have with this brotherhood and sisterhood in aviation.
The year 2020 holds promise to be a wonderful year for us in aviation in Minnesota. The Minnesota Pilots Association is already into the planning stages for the 7th Annual Great Minnesota Aviation Gathering. We will be holding the event again at the Buffalo Municipal Airport, on Friday and Saturday, April 24-25, 2020. You may recall that we moved the event to Buffalo in 2019, with great success. The community welcomed us with open arms and we found this venue to be quite fitting for celebrating all things aviation in Minnesota.
We are planning the Hangar Flying events and would ask that you send any suggestions for topics/speakers to me at info@mnpilots.org. We search for topics which will be of interest to those who attend, and for speakers who are exceptional communicators. We know that we will be having an emphasis on flying to destinations this year. Captain Bill Rusk, of Southwest Airlines, will be sharing his experiences in flying on floats in Southeast Alaska in the Javron Super Cub that he crafted. Having spent two weeks flying with him I can assure you that the visuals and explanations he will provide will be exceptional. We also will have presentations about flying to the backcountry destinations in Idaho and Montana. To accompany this we will have presentations on survival techniques and medicine, giving tips on how you might survive an unanticipated “camping experience.”
I hope you will take a few minutes to sit back and reflect upon places you have flown to and give some thought to places that you would like to visit, not only in Minnesota but also in other parts of the country. We are blessed with many super places to visit right here at home, but we also have a playground in nearby Wisconsin and upper peninsula of Michigan that are easily accessible by aircraft, making them wonderful destinations for us.
One of our key missions is to encourage young people to become involved in aviation. EAA’s Young Eagle program is one way that many EAA chapters across the state helps us achieve our mission, but so does just lifting a child into the cockpit of your aircraft. Taking a neighbor for a flight can open not only friendships, but also provide a new insight into aviation.
We join together to wish you a Happy New Year, and many awesome flying experiences!
Happy Flying.
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