Angel Flight

Flying is already one of the most wonderful and rewarding things I do in my life. There are few things in life that you rely on yourself so much. While flying, when things go right, it's you. When things don't go right, it's you. It's that simple. One of the things I've done recently is to fly Angel Flights. If you haven't heard about this, it's the greatest thing to do if you are a pilot. Essentially you volunteer to fly people with medical needs from Point A to Point B. On my first Angel Flight, I picked up my passenger at San Luis Obispo on the beautiful central coast of California and flew her to Oakland. Flying from the rural coast of California to the San Francisco Class B airspace (essentially designated an extremely busy airspace) into Oakland was quite a journey. My passenger was a wonderful passenger who enjoyed flying and we diverted left and right during the flight to get a better glimpse at something interesting on the ground. It was fun to call air traffic control and say, this is Angel Flight 22Q. Even air traffic control gets into Angel Flights. I did my best to help my passenger enjoy her flight and tried to make it a temporary escape from whatever medical issues are concerning her. I think it worked. In that short 1 hour flight, we literally became friends, and she also helped me to forget all the things on my mind for 1 brief shining hour. Flying is already a wonderful thing to do, but flying Angel Flights, well the reward is beyond words! Even the descent into Oakland was not stressful with all of the airline traffic from San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. Somehow I knew an "angel" was looking over us on this day, and I was right. The angel was my passenger.