MNPilots Hanger Flying

Season’s Greetings from the Minnesota Pilots Association! 2024 has been an interesting year, don’t you think?! In Minnesota we enjoyed a pretty good year with another successful and enjoyable Great Minnesota Aviation Gathering, and another excellent Seaplane Pilots Association Safety Seminar. The Fly In breakfasts and lunches were successful all around, providing not only tasty meals but also the opportunity to see old friends and make new ones. It was a great year for aviation safety thanks, in part, to the efforts of those who organized the events mentioned previously, along with the leadership demonstrated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation-Aeronautics. We have been very fortunate.

We will be finishing off the year with what we hope to be a very successful Minnesota Tree of Hope campaign, and we hope you were able to contribute in one way or another to helping those children who find themselves in hospitals or health care facilities over Christmas. If not, please take a moment to offer a prayer and thoughts to those precious children. When I think of the pilot-driven Tree of Hope flights, I am taken back to Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol,” with Tiny Tim, who captured the hearts of Dickens readers.

With the Holidays comes the opportunity to reflect on our relationships with friends and loved ones as we sit around the kitchen and living room tables in our homes, enjoying each other's company. Many EAA chapters and local airports associations have Holiday parties and dinners, giving us the chance to revel in the friendships we have come to enjoy throughout the year. Many toasts and prayers are offered through the magic of flight, something that all who are reading this issue of the Minnesota Flyer have in common. I hope you will take a moment and recognize how precious and important are the friendships with which we have been blessed through our aviation community. For me, I think about those fellow aviators who have Gone West this last year, and I take stock of those new friends with whom I was fortunate enough to cross paths with this year. I think about the children and young people who have been introduced to aviation and flight thanks to the Young Eagle rallies that have been generously provided by you, my fellow pilots, throughout the year.

Of course, we hope that each of you have been good girls and boys this year and that Santa has you listed prominently on his Good List, that there will be very few lumps of coal in your Christmas stockings. I truly believe that good things come to those who give of themselves throughout the year, and when I see the energy and kindness of those who attend some of the many aviation events throughout the year I am encouraged. We thank you for being supporters and members of the Minnesota Pilots Association and if you are not, please visit http://www.mnpilots.org and join us!

In closing 2024, to quote Dickens…” And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!” Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!