formerly "The View From Up Here"

Formerly titled "The View From Up Here" this column began in the Liberty Gazette June 26, 2007.

To get your copy of "Ely Air Lines: Select Stories from 10 Years of a Weekly Column" volumes 1 and 2, visit our website at https://www.paperairplanepublishing.com/ely-air-lines/

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December 21, 2021 The Giving Season, Part III - AIM Air

The Liberty Gazette
December 21, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: There are signs in yards around town proclaiming that Jesus is the reason. Indeed, Christmas isn’t about trees, Santa Claus, and reindeer. If we are going to celebrate the birth of Christ, supporting people and organizations who are committed to doing his work deserve our attention. We can make a difference. 

As we journey further along in the Giving Season, we aim to create awareness and present opportunities for your heart to change lives around the world. This week, we highlight the Christian mission organization, AIM Air. AIM stands for Africa Inland Missions.

AIM Air has two bases in Africa. The main base is at Wilson Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. The other is a remote base in Arua, a large town in northwest Uganda bordering South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This base serves the missionaries who work “beyond the end of the road.” 

Donations to AIM Air become a lifeline for missionaries serving people in remote places. They provide critical support by air, and that keeps missionaries safer and serving longer in Africa in the most isolated and vulnerable places. Sometimes missionaries or the people they serve need immediate care. There have been scares with poisonous snakes, and there have been civil wars. Through these, and all kinds of emergencies in between, it has just taken one phone call to AIM Air to begin evacuation. 

Because of the kinds of aircraft they fly, often generically referred to as “bush planes,” AIM Air pilots can land just about anywhere, load up, and take off, getting people to safety. 

They also bring supplies to those on the front lines. Items such as mail, food, audio bibles and literacy materials, car parts and building supplies have made their way to the most remote places on AIM Air’s planes. 

I flew with AIM Air a couple of times years ago. A Cessna 206 and a Caravan. We flew out of Nairobi and landed in South Sudan and Congo, ever mindful of guerrillas hiding in the trees. The kind that carry guns.

Mike: In 1982, the flight instructor who worked with me for my commercial pilot certificate was an AIM Air pilot. In 1985, this pilot who trained me to do canyon turns flew four hostages out of hostile territory after being released by Sudanese rebels that had held them captive for over a year. They sometimes are called upon to do these things. 

AIM Air invites us all to join their “Half Ton Team”. By sending $50 a month, they can fly an extra 1,100 pounds of goods or people. There’s a special joy this brings to givers. For me, it’s one of anticipation for the future, because while I may not see the impact of what one flight with one little box on board may mean this side of eternity, on the other side… I can just imagine. If you’ve ever dreamed of launching a flight without being a pilot, supporting AIM Air will allow you to do that. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 14, 2021 The Giving Season, Part II - Samaritan's Purse

The Liberty Gazette
December 14, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Here we are, in the Giving Season. This month, we aim to create awareness and present opportunities for you to change lives around the world. This week, we highlight the Christian humanitarian organization, Samaritan’s Purse.

Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37? After sharing this story, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” The story gives a clear picture of God’s desire for us to help those in desperate need, wherever we find them. That is the mission of Samaritan's Purse.

For over 50 years, Samaritan’s Purse has done their utmost to follow Christ’s command by going to the aid of the world’s poor, sick, and suffering. The organization has reached hurting people in countries around the world with food, medicine, and other assistance, and much of the work is accomplished by airplane.

The Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 allows them to respond to global disasters at a moment’s notice. Since it first deployed in April of 2016, the DC-8 has carried more than 5.6 million pounds of cargo on 147 missions around the world.

You may already be familiar with Samaritan’s Purse because of their incredibly generous Shoebox program through Operation Christmas Child, or because you know of Franklin Graham, son of the late Rev. Billy Graham. But Samaritan’s Purse was actually started by someone else.

 After visiting suffering children on the Korean island of Koje-do, Bob Pierce wrote in his Bible, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.” This impassioned prayer is what guided him as he founded Samaritan’s Purse in 1970.

Then Pierce came across some courageous women who were living among lepers and orphans in China, sacrificing everything to share Christ’s love. That’s when he received a vision for ministry and dedicated himself to finding and supporting Christians who were caring for the poor and suffering in the distant corners of the world.

In the summer of 1973, Pierce met Franklin Graham, who was then an adventurous young student with a growing heart for world missions. They spent a lot of time together, and in 1975, Graham accompanied Pierce to some of the world's neediest mission fields. He saw the poverty of pagan religions and the utter despair of the people they enslave.

After Bob Pierce died of leukemia in 1978, Franklin Graham took the reins of Samaritan's Purse. Through over 40 years of earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, and famine, Samaritan’s Purse has continued the Biblical example, flying medicine, supplies, food, and personnel all across the globe.

Their DC-8 is also used to send Shoebox gifts to children in some of the hardest-to-reach places—whether deep jungles, city slums, steep mountainsides, or one of 1,000 remote Pacific islands. When you build a Shoebox online, it provides a creative way to share the Good News in remote areas in a culturally sensitive manner. 

“Go and do likewise.” No matter where they go or what they do, they offer more than help. They offer hope to suffering people in a broken world.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 7, 2021 The Giving Season, Part I - JAARS

The Liberty Gazette
December 7, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

With another Thanksgiving celebrated, giving thanks for all we’ve been given, we enter again into the Giving Season. This time of year, people who celebrate Christmas and people who don’t find common ground in giving. During this time, we aim to create awareness and present opportunities for your heart to change lives around the world. We’ll start with the Christian mission organization, JAARS, sharing information from their website.

Seventy years ago, Cameron Townsend acted on his belief that all people should have God’s Word in their own language. His action was to create JAARS – Jungle Aviation and Radio Service, SIL International (a literacy organization), and Wycliff Bible Translators as Christian change agencies with a goal to permeate cultures without destroying them.

Through JAARS, Townsend set out to accomplish the Great Commission goal of providing Scripture to every people group on earth in a language and form they clearly understand. In his words, “Airplanes and radios don’t just make translation easier; they make it possible.”

He devoted his life to that vision, trusting that God would make the impossible possible. Reaching and working in minority language communities—sometimes in the most remote, dangerous corners of the world—had to be overcome with logistical support. 

Today, JAARS is a multidisciplinary team of problem-solvers committed to the belief that people’s lives and communities are transformed as they experience God’s Word in their own language. Their commitment is to support their translation partners with locally appropriate and sustainable solutions until the Gospel has reached the whole world. These solutions come in transportation, technology, media, and training. And being there requires a strong ministry so that the translation projects underway or yet to begin in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas are not hindered by lack of support in the areas where God has blessed JAARS to serve.

Major transportation tools, like aircraft and boats, are critical for JAARS to overcome logistical barriers around the world. But these tools are becoming increasingly expensive and take longer to fund, even as translation plans begin to focus on the last, most remote language communities.

With the expansion of transportation systems and infrastructure globally, along with the pace of technology and communications innovation, it’s tempting to wonder whether any place, any longer, is truly “off the grid.” The reality is yes. Missionaries intently focused on translation efforts are increasingly challenged by the responsibility to manage mission-critical transportation operations. JAARS continues to help fill these gaps, but not without support from private donors. 

At the JAARS Center in Waxhaw, North Carolina, missionaries and other volunteers depend on the research and development, training, manufacturing, repairs, medical services, housing, food service, childcare, and spiritual encouragement to help make Scripture translation possible. They depend on this support to have a sustainable impact when they are working in the field. Ultimately, the work is for the millions of people still eagerly waiting to hear and grasp the Gospel in the language they understand best.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 30, 2021 What Hits the Airwaves Doesn't Always Fly

The Liberty Gazette
November 30, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Here’s hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and called to mind many things for which you’re thankful, whether they fly or not. 

Remember the 1970’s sitcom about a radio station, WKRP in Cincinnati? The cast and crew had a lot to be thankful for with the episode, “Turkeys Away.” The show had been on the air only four months and was about to be canned, but this one saved it as audiences gobbled it up, and TV Guide marked it as the fortieth greatest episode of any series in television history.

Feeling job insecurity with the hiring of a new program director, station manager, Arthur Carlson (played by Gordon Jump), comes up with a holiday promotion idea to be the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie: twenty turkeys would drop out of the sky – gifts that would bless some lucky people out shopping in the mall.

“Dr. Johnny Fever,” the popular DJ (played by Howard Hessman), closes out the last notes of a song and cuts to Les Nessman (played by Richard Sanders), the station’s news reporter, who positioned himself in the mall parking lot for the big surprise. The beat of rotor blades (which sound like a Bell-47 bubble-type helicopter) accompany Les as he begins his play-by-play, first reporting an object falling from the aircraft, and openly wondering if it’s a parachutist. Realizing it’s a turkey, and more are following, the scene unfolds into chaos, with turkeys hitting the parking lot “like bags of wet cement,” and people running for cover. 

Back at the station, the staff who huddled around Johnny Fever anticipating a live, feel-good report, quickly realize the plan has run afoul. Fever cuts back in with, “For those of you who have just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys.” 

Not to worry, fellow animal lovers, no turkeys were injured in the making of the show. It all fell to the nerdy Nessman to ignite listeners’ imaginations, as one must do in radio. The actors all said it was difficult to keep from laughing while filming that segment. 

WKRP went on to complete a four-year run and was later revived for another three years. It was nominated for eighteen awards, including Emmy, Golden Globe, Humanitas, and TV Land, scoring wins twice.

This much-loved script was written by Bill Dial, who wrote and produced many television shows, including some Star Trek episodes. He even appeared occasionally in WKRP as the radio station’s engineer, Bucky Dornster, and acted small parts in other shows, too. 

But Episode 7 of Season 1 went down in history as his best, the fan favorite, which ends as Les Nessman returns to the office in a daze and explains the rest of the story. “The turkeys mounted a sort of counter-attack. It’s as if they were somehow organized.” 

While Nessman served up the meat of the show, the real gravy came in the closing line by Mr. Carlson. “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 23, 2021 Keys to the Bank

The Liberty Gazette
November 23, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: We were in the bank the other day and our business kept us there til near closing time. There weren’t many people around, and it brought back memories of flying to Blythe, California, back in the days of cancelled checks. In Blythe, I was not only the pilot delivering bank and courier mail to the airport, I also drove into town to drop it off at individual businesses and banks. 

In 1985, Blythe was a small farming community. It’s in the middle of the desert that rests on the bank of the Colorado River. During the winter months its population grows nearly three times because of “snowbirds.” There were three banks in Blythe, and I delivered and picked up all their cancelled checks and bank mail and transported it to the processing centers and clearing houses in Los Angeles. 

I would fly in from Burbank early in the morning, stopping along the way to hand off bags of bank work to drivers who met me at the Riverside and Twentynine Palms airports. After landing at Blythe, I loaded my remaining cargo into an old Chevy Chevette and made the rounds through town. By then, all the businesses were open and bustling. After my deliveries, I’d wait out the day by the pool at the layover motel, and then trek back through town to pick up anything the banks had going out. 

Most days all the businesses were still open in the afternoon. Except on Fridays when the banks closed before I came back through. Therefore, I had the keys to all the banks in Blythe. Seems shocking nowadays, what with the unpatriotic “Patriot Act” and all. 

No, back in the day, a man’s integrity meant something. I’d turn off the alarm before unlocking the door and enter the quiet, empty bank lobby. Piled in the middle of the floor was my “loot” – bags which I picked up and stacked in my car. Locking the door behind me and re-arming the alarm, I proceeded to the next bank, and the next, committing the same heist, and finally on to the airport to load my winged get-away.

In the year 2004, the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (“Check 21”) changed the way banks processed checks. Now it’s all done electronically, removing the need for airplanes to transport the paper.

I couldn’t help but tell my story as we stood at the teller’s window, the last customers of the day. I bet she wasn’t even born yet when I was turning off bank alarms every Friday night. You should have seen her face when I got to the part about having the keys. That always surprises people. And I thought about what today’s security measures are like. Background checks, fingerprinting, bio-identification, cameras, and who knows what else. 

The days are short this time of year. We left with just a hint of sunlight still on the western horizon, just like it was when I departed Blythe, loaded with bank work, keys, and trust.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 16, 2021 FAA vs FCC

The Liberty Gazette
November 16, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

A couple of common questions we hear are: how does a pilot know how to land at an airport without an air traffic control tower, and how do conditions in the air or on the ground affect our flight? Legally, pilots are charged with the full responsibility of knowing “all available information” that affects their flight – all of it. 

One of the new pieces of information will come from the FAA on December 5. Note that this is the date that the FCC said 5G service is supposed to be available. But 5G is scary, even to the FAA. So now those two oversized government agencies will have to duke it out. Which does the American public want more? Increased bandwidth or safe flights? Pick one.

Washington, D.C. is where problems are born. The FCC sold little slices of the frequency pie to investors of a private 5G network. Unfortunately, these little slices are in a frequency range dangerously close to the radio band dedicated to aircraft radar altimeters, used with instrument landing systems.

Since the FCC isn’t willing to restrict 5G antennas from placement near 46 major U.S. airports, the FAA will issue a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin and an Airworthiness Directive. Both are strong actions, and what they mean is that if a certain condition becomes true, then pilots and crew must take certain actions. 

That “certain condition” is the aircraft’s radar altimeter indicating erroneous altitudes due to 5G signals between towers and satellites. And that “certain action” will affect the possibility of landing using the instrument landing system.

Think about the times you’ve been on an airliner, descending to land, and you go through a low cloud layer. For each runway, there is an altitude which an aircraft cannot go below if the pilots cannot see the runway. Therefore, a decision has to be made when reaching that land/don’t land minimum altitude. 

While there are airliners are equipped to auto-land in near-zero visibility at specific airports, this feature can only be used by pilots who are trained to use that system. These approaches require radar altimeters to determine the aircraft’s height above the runway. But if the instrument that provides this information suddenly receives signal interference, the radar altimeter can become unreliable, and the landing cannot be completed. 

Since we cannot have airplanes taking off if their ability to land is uncertain, this could lead to many delays and cancellations, because right now, 5G appears to wield a significant threat to safety of flight.

Even if it is possible to modify the altimeters to shake off the stray energy that will come from 5G cell phones, that will come at an enormous cost, and the FCC isn’t offering to pay for it. It’s a fair bet that airlines may not be in a position to refit the instruments in their entire fleet. Certainly not by December 5. Interestingly, Canadians have solved the problem by structuring no-5G-zones near major Canadian airports. That may be the only thing Canada is doing right these days.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 9, 2021 Weather Phobias

The Liberty Gazette
November 9, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: The 2022 Old Farmer’s Almanac is out. I picked up my copy at Tractor Supply. Thumbing through it, near the end, I found a list of weather phobias. I hadn’t considered such a category of things would actually have names, but now that I think about it, sure, why not? For instance, our dog Abby, and many other dogs as well, have astraphobia, a fear of lightning and thunder. It’s also known as tonitrophobia, brontophobia, and keraunophobia. Keraunos is ancient Greek for lightning or thunderbolt. Bronte is another Greek word for thunder. While I don’t harbor this fear, I certainly respect it when flying and stay far from thunderstorms in the Elyminator. Lately, we’ve had some gorgeous flying weather, with a few dud-days sprinkled in between. 

Oh, those beautiful days, when the crisp blue sky looks like it needs a little red and white airplane with black and white checkered wingtips! We cannot resist. Plus, we peek in at the progress of various construction projects, such as the railroad, completion of 99, and River Ranch, the neighborhood under construction in Dayton.

Mike: A few years back, we had some conversations with one of the developers, Eddie Gray, about building a runway as part of River Ranch. He approached us one morning after church looking for suggestions on ways to improve the planned development. He had an idea that an airport would be a worthwhile addition. That conversation led to a meeting at his offices in Baytown where he unveiled what is now under construction.

Near the development, there’s a grass strip called Gum Island. It’s still officially charted by the FAA, meaning it isn’t closed. M&M Air Service from Beaumont and other crop duster companies used it when they worked fields in the area, but much of the time the grass was overgrown. Eddie thought the runway could be extended and paved, and we thought so too. Our conversations mostly centered around what that it would look like and how it would benefit the community. 

Taking into consideration how underserved the east side of Houston is by airports, I must admit my creative juices flowed with the idea of building a new airport, something rare in today’s world. I drew up several concept pictures for Mr. Gray, and we discussed what would work and what wouldn’t. We talked about safety, noise-filtering landscaping, the optimum runway length which would not be intrusive yet adequately serve the area, and necessary infrastructure and construction investments.

Unfortunately, the other partners nixed the deal on a new runway for River Ranch. I was disappointed but not really surprised. A new airport is a hard idea to sell even if it does make economic sense. 

Surveying the progress from above, one has to wonder, with such a major project, where plans can be hindered by nature, do the workers and investors have any weather phobias? I couldn’t blame them if they were lilapsophobes (fearing hurricanes and tornadoes), or antlophobes (afraid of floods). So here’s wishing them good weather and great success.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 2, 2021 The Rain in Spain

The Liberty Gazette
November 2, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Prior to moving to Liberty, I was the manager and chief pilot of a corporate flight department based in Miami. The company I worked for had entities on three continents, and I spent more time flying to destinations outside our country than in it. I flew the company’s Learjet, and later a Gulfstream, to some rather exotic locations, many with challenging conditions. 

One such destination was Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. We didn’t stay in Santiago, rather, we used it as a technical refueling stop when we flew the Learjet across the Atlantic. A tech stop is an allowable, provisional stop and does not include clearing customs, although customs officials often met the airplane there to save time. Otherwise, Rosalia de Castro airport was where we would land for customs on our way to Madrid, which was our primary base of operations in Europe. By contrast, the Gulfstream, with its longer fuel range, could bypass Santiago and go straight to Madrid or Paris when we crossed the pond from St. Johns, Newfoundland. 

Regardless which aircraft we flew, the complexities of flying across the Atlantic required logistical planning. For instance, there are one-way “tracks” to follow depending on which direction you’re flying over the ocean. Eastbound flights start in the afternoon from the U.S. and Canada, fly all night, and land in Europe early to mid-morning. Westbound flights leave Europe in the afternoon and arrive at night in North America. However, because the Learjet lacked the range, our flight times were different from those following the tracks. We’d leave Florida in the morning, and after fueling in Canada, fly across the ocean in between the usual morning and afternoon flights, giving us the benefit of a more direct route. We would make landfall in Spain around 10:00 pm. It seemed it was always raining, with turbulence blowing in from the Atlantic. 

Once landed, we’d have less than an hour to refuel and take off for Madrid before they closed the airport for the night. Often, I could be seen standing next to the jet on the dark, wet ramp in Santiago, holding a flashlight for the fueler while trying to keep the umbrella in my other hand from collapsing as I held it over him and the open tank while wind and rain whipped and pummeled us.

Sometimes that job was demanding, but the significant memory of flying into Santiago that remains with me today is their approach lighting system, and how they built it to adapt to the conditions that were common there. Most major airports have very bright approach light systems that can be seen from 25 miles away. But Santiago far exceeds that. Their approach lights are visible a hundred miles out over the sea, even through all that rain. This is a huge help for pilots. Like the new weather reporting system at the Liberty Municipal Airport here, it’s like a kind of welcome mat, helping us find our way.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

October 26, 2021 Amarillo by Midday

The Liberty Gazette
October 26, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We’ve been teased by the recent cooler weather, just a taste of lovely autumn (without the unparalleled leaf-peeping in the country’s northeast). We did that once, about a decade ago, made up our own “Fall Foliage Flying Tour” through New England states. In Maine, there’s an ice cream store on nearly every corner, and they all tout the best blueberry frozen treats. The folks in New Hampshire compete ferociously in the maple arena, claiming “those folks across the Connecticut River paint their leaves,” as they hand over a bottle of their best syrup. I would love to take another fall trip like that, but this time, Amarillo offered a divergent stand-in. Not for a whole week, thankfully, but a one-day jaunt. Just up and back in the Elyminator. 

When we plan a full day, we pack a lunch and plenty of water, in case we have unexpected delays. That happened once when we were flying out to visit some of Mike’s siblings in Arizona and Nevada. The vacuum pump began to fail somewhere between here and Midland, which was our planned fuel stop. Fortunately, there was a mechanic on the field there. Unfortunately, there was a storm coming. Fortunately, the mechanic worked fast. He must have replaced it in record time. But still unfortunately, the black sky was bearing down on Midland. Fortunately, we flew out just in time. 

But this day was sunny, with lower temps and less humidity. A check of the weather along our route showed we could snag a tailwind at a lower altitude on the way up and higher for the trip back. Before we could climb to 4,500 feet, we had to get past the arrivals into Intercontinental. An airliner descending from the east crossed above and ahead of us a few miles. The air was smooth until we went through their falling wake turbulence a few minutes later. The disrupted, swirling air gave us a nudge, but not too bad, as the wake was dissipating. 

Once past Houston’s airspace and back in smooth air, we climbed to our cruise altitude and pointed the nose toward “the yellow rose of Texas,” sometimes called, “Rotor City, USA” for its V-22 Osprey hybrid aircraft assembly plant. In-flight dining service started at some point during the 475-nautical-mile trip. We unpacked cold spaghetti left-overs, careful to hold the containers close to the chin to avoid sprinkling the airplane with Rao’s spaghetti sauce. It was a good thing we finished before reaching Palo Duro Canyon, because the wind picked up about that point, and the ride turned bumpy. 

Mike: As the canyon seemingly slid beneath the wings of the Elyminator, my imagination took flight. Those wind-carved spires and water-worn washes had cut side canyons down from the caprock, meandering into the Red River. This is kind of place where the western novel would grow to epic proportions. And we, like an eagle or hawk, buzzed above the storied land as Terry Stafford’s famous song played in my head.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

October 19, 2021 Landing with an Audience

The Liberty Gazette
October 19, 2021
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Last week I storied on about the new James Bond movie, “No Time to Die,” and the fun we found in my sister going to the show with a former U2 spy plane pilot. I happened to share that story with a Canadian pilot friend, who got a kick out of the fact that I had never heard of the actor who played Bond, Daniel Craig. My friend had once had the pleasure of having Mr. Craig as a passenger on his commercial flight. He said, “I remember looking back through the flight deck door and seeing him in the front row with his golfer hat on. He looked like he literally just walked off a movie set. I was all worried I was going to crunch the landing with James Bond on my flight. Luckily, I did not.” 

That’s kind of similar to what I’m thinking when we arrive at a fly-in, like we did last weekend for the annual fall Critters Lodge event in Centerville. It’s a 3,100-foot turf runway surrounded by trees. Nestled among those trees are coves cleared out for parking spots. People set up their tents and camp out next to their airplanes. It stands to reason then that unless you’re the first one there, you’ll have an audience. 

Mike: The first challenge is always finding the airstrip. The GPS gets us to the area, but the runway surrounded by piney woods isn’t easy to pick out. We can be deceived by the many small open patches in the furry green landscape until we are directly above it. This time, a glint of sunlight reflected from another airplane’s wing got our eyes focused on the right spot. Then we knew right where to join in the pattern.

The opening for the strip is not wide – about twice the wingspan of our airplane, so landing there can seem a bit daunting for some. Bright red balls mark the powerlines at the east end of the runway. Once we’re clear of those lines, we can reduce engine power and drop right down. Linda made a smooth landing for the spectators to envy.

Linda: Mike recorded it, too, so I inserted a few seconds of it at the beginning of my new Instagram video. I have experience with desktop video and audio editors, but this was my first experience using the app, InShot, recommended by my niece. It’s easy to use and offers a fairly nice variety of tools for moving, cutting, speeding and slowing, fading, and even reverse video. Free background music options only require that the artist be properly credited with embedded text on the video for a couple of seconds, and they make that easy, too. The music selection within InShot isn’t great, but their library is growing, and of course, if I had original music, I could use that instead. 

If you’re on Instagram, follow me at either @lindastreetely or @paperairplanepublishing, and boogie to the scenes from Critters Lodge.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com