Morning looking up already. The DVD rendering software is still taunting me, spinning for hours before telling me that no, I still don’t have enough disc space, try again, sonny (could you please, please, please just tell me how much disc space you need?). And I again failed to wangle a ride on the KBA Twin Otter that’s spent the past couple of days doing low passes of the area around the station for photo shoots. Going along on these flights is viewed as a perk, so Station management needs to walk a delicate line on who gets selected. And for the past couple of days, it’s been Not Me.

In the galley this morning, I came off the breakfast line behind a pretty young woman I didn’t recognize with a flight case tucked under her arm.

“You one of the Otter pilots?”

“Yup! I’m Erica.”

Lexi (left) and Erica (right) fire up the twin PT-6’s

I mentioned that I’d been out in front of the Station last night shooting some pictures, and that (just laying it out there shamelessly) being a flight instructor, I had looked up wistfully at each low arcing pass they’d made over the station.

“Geez – why didn’t you come along with us?”

“It’s uh, complicated.”

“Well, we’re grounded today by the weather, but if we get up tomorrow, we’ll find a way to squeeze you in.”

me: (grin two miles wide)

Lotsa cargo room

Erica dropped by about an hour later: “We’re just turning the plane around and moving it to the staging area, but you’d mentioned you like being around planes – wanna come along?”

me: (grin extends a third mile) “Ben, Daniel – bye!”

Erica and Lexi (the other pilot) let me sit in the left seat and familiarize myself with the panel while they did a quick pre-taxi inspection, then I moved back to the capacious cargo area as they climbed in and fired it up.

Sure, it was just a three-minute taxi over the snow to the “Otter Pit”, but it made my day.

Lexi: “Made your day? Man, you’ve been away too long.”

me: “Yeah, maybe.”

Buttoning up the plane for the night