Missing man

I don't get to do much flying on my own, but the opportunity presented itself Tuesday and I jumped at the chance.

It wasn't the happiest of occasions as I headed up to the Fargo Air Museum to attend the memorial service for Gerry Beck, who was killed when his Mustang collided with another P-51 while landing at Oshkosh.

I'm sad to say I never got to know Beck very well. I'd met him a few times and it was always an interesting experience and he was a class act all the way. The fact that the ramp near the museum was packed and there had to be 700-800 people there was a testament to Beck and what he meant to people.

The service was touching, funny, moving, sad and inspirational in all the right places and proportions and I was glad I made the trip.

The flight home was a good chance to just sit back and enjoy the fact that I'm lucky enough to fly airplanes when I wish.

I'd filed IFR even though the forecast was good, just to get some time in the system. Besides, it's easier than flying VFR. It turned out to be a good thing. It was hot and hazy and when the sun set a few minutes after I lifted off it was downright murky, even at 7,000 feet.

I gave up flying visually and went on the gauges. The weather was still technically VFR but in the dark and haze there wasn't anything that resembled a horizon and there aren't many lights on the ground in that part of the country for reference.

To relieve the boredom I concentrated on keeping the cross track error on the Garmin 430 as close to zero as I could. It's absurd to try and fix an error of a few hundredths of a mile but there wasn't much else to do so I made a little game of trying.

After a while I caught something out of the corner of my eye, looked up and just stared ahead totally confused by what I was seeing.

It took probably a minute, maybe two, before I realized the bright red object on the horizon was the moon, rising through the haze.

It was truly spectacular and I just stared in awe at one of the most beautiful moonrises I've seen. I had to chuckle and for a minute I wondered if Gerry had arranged a special treat for everyone who was flying home that evening.

It's incredible, the special sights we see from the front seats of our tiny airplanes and how flying can make you feel so privileged and yet so insignificant at the same time.