FLYING ADVENTURES: Travels in a Private Plane

Our rarely used wind socks darned and aloft, this morning we're watching Flying Adventures land near the MagSampler.com newsstand, our first aviation magazine! This travel publication is for people who do what most people can only dream of: Drop out of the clouds in their own airplanes to spend a day, weekend or week at whatever area interests them. We're paging through a recent issue, and many intriguing destinations are described in its pages. The first is the Santa Barbara wine country, celebrated in the recent movie Sideways. The destination articles in this magazine are unique in that they tend to advise you of the amenities (and landing strip lengths) at local airports before they put you in a rental car and suggest the best spots at which to sightsee, stay, eat and recreate. Publisher Michael Higgins, known in these pages as "Pilot Michael," is an omnipresent figure in the articles, many of which he writes from his publishing base at El Monte Airport in Pasadena, CA. Here he gives you his recommendations on the best wines to purchase on your visit to Santa Barbara County's wineries, including the establishment run by Fess Parker, ol' Davy Crockett himself. He next takes you on a visit up north to the Cascade Range, which stretches from British Columbia to Mount Shasta in California, and again wineries are a focus of attention. Then we leave the West Coast for Glenview, IL, just a few miles south of Chicago. Much of this area along the Des Plaines River is a nature preserve, and Glenview itself is a gem of a prairie village, with enough big-city amenities to keep you comfortable. And if flying into one small airport after another isn't enough of a kick, Pilot Michael explains how easy it is to qualify for flying seaplanes: just a three-day course will do it, and then you're free to fly a float plane into places where ordinary planes should never land. After all this flying around, the issue does get down to the nitty-gritty of buying a new basic "air car," which is described as a four-seat single-engine propeller plane. The magazine lists eight candidates, ranging in price from $236,000 to $399,000. Flying Adventures is clearly for people with good-sized wallets or big dreams. An annual subscription (three issues) is $25.00 from the publisher; you can get a sample copy from us for $2.59.