Standing in the aviation museum and staring at this exhibit—otherwise known as my next mode of training transportation—I started to seriously worry that I was going to die. Fast-forward thirty minutes, now airborne, and my worry shifted to the far more terrifying realisation: I might not.
The aircraft in question was an ancient Piper PA28, a relic so decrepit it probably rolled off the assembly line when Wyoming was still part of the supercontinent Pangea, eons before it ever became part of America. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this flying fossil had once shared a runway with dinosaurs—perhaps the Diplodocus leading the pack—and somehow emerged as one of the sole survivors of the comet that nearly wiped out God’s creation in one fell swoop, leaving only the mammals and this contraption to withstand the hellish blast. As I buckled myself into the cracked and slightly sticky seat—made from a material that clearly predated any FAA-approved safety standards—I couldn't help but wonder if the plane had been serviced at any point in the last few millennia. The dashboard was an apocalyptic wasteland of faded dials, peeling labels, and suspiciously loose screws. A quick glance told me the instruments probably hadn’t been calibrated since the Bronze Age.
When the engine finally coughed to life, I instinctively clutched the seatbelt tighter. It was less of a reassuring hum and more of a death rattle. If the PA28 had a soul, it was begging for retirement—or euthanasia. Instead, here we were, defying gravity through what I could only assume was sheer force of denial.
The first few minutes in the air were uneventful if you didn’t count the unsettling vibrations that made the entire plane feel like it was held together by wallpaper glue and cardboard. The horizon tilted slightly as we climbed, the Piper wheezing like an asthmatic, chain smoking centenarian at every adjustment of the throttle.
By the time we levelled off, my mind had gone to a dark, sarcastic place. If this plane went down—and trust me, the odds were solid—it wouldn’t even make a dramatic headline. “"Aviation Relic Defies Fate One Last Time Before Finally Meeting Its Maker" was about as sensational as a headline could get.
So, what led me to climb into a flying contraption with the crash protection of cheeseburger wrapping? A laundry list of reasons, of course, topped by my chronic lack of foresight and a thin grasp on the consequences of my poor decisions.
An opening excerpt from What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Chronicles of Chaos and Courage remains available here. The full book can be ordered here.
Me in my favourite environment: freezing, cramped, vibrating like a washing machine full of gravel — and absolutely perfect.
This is where I belong.
In the cockpit of a Super Cub, somewhere above the snow-laced wastelands of Wyoming, chasing a dream built out of survival manuals, avgas, and reckless optimism.
By this point, I had seen enough busted tractors, burned cash, and bureaucratic meltdowns to question every life choice that led here. But the moment the tail lifts and the tires leave the ice — that’s it. That’s the drug. That’s the madness.
You don’t sit in a Super Cub. You strap it on like a nervous system extension and hope it forgives your sins.
The dream was close now — tangled in engine vibrations, frostbite, and the possibility of disaster.
Which meant I was right where I needed to be.
Entering low orbit during my hideous IFR training — because nothing says “low-level predator control” like high-altitude brain haemorrhaging inside a cockpit that looks like it was built by Boeing during a blackout.
At 13,000 feet, sweating through procedures more convoluted than Apple’s tax filings, I had a revelation:
The USDA does not operate on logic.
It operates on inertia, obsolete manuals, and the ghost of a supervisor who died in 1987 but still signs off on flight standards from the afterlife.
All of this — just to eventually fly ten feet above a cow field in a Super Cub held together by zip ties and stubbornness, chasing coyotes and dodging fences like some kind of underpaid avian cowboy.
Why the space-shuttle cockpit? Because in the infinite wisdom of government training doctrine, the only way to earn that duct-taped Cub is to first survive a high-altitude simulation of a nervous breakdown in an aircraft that looks like:
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A space shuttle command module,
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Married a 747 autopilot panel,
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Then got sideswiped by a Russian satellite,
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And was rebuilt by retired air traffic controllers with PTSD and label makers.
Every knob has a Cold War backstory. The switches are colour-coded like a malfunctioning Christmas tree.
Half the instruments aren’t even relevant, but if you miss a checklist item, the ghost of Charles Lindbergh shows up and cancels your existence.
You don’t fly this thing.
You negotiate with it.
While sweating, praying, and trying not to eject out of the canopy just to make it stop.
And when it’s all over? You don’t get a medal.
You get permission to fly really low, really slow, in the windscreen-less Wild West…
Where the real danger isn’t terrain.
It’s the job description.
Welcome to the USDA.
Where overtraining is mandatory, logic is optional, and IFR officially stands for:
“I’m F*ed, Really.”
TSA CLEARANCE: THE PADDED ROOM OF AVIATION TRAINING
Applying for TSA clearance felt like Chernobyl in slow motion, supervised by sock puppets on ketamine.
Strip down, hand over your dignity, and wait 53 weeks while a clearance officer who thinks “hummus” is a weapon decides if you're a national threat because your last name isn't Bob.
Terrorists caught? Zero.
Nail clippers, baby formula, and dignity confiscated? Thousands.
Welcome to the Mariana Trench of bureaucratic stupidity, where logic goes to die and clipboard cosplay is considered a national service.
If Kafka, Orwell, and Monty Python started an airline, the TSA would be running ground ops.
Forget bush planes and broken charts. This is it.
Me, in a snowplow, clearing Wyoming’s frozen runway like a caffeine-fuelled Viking on probation — and seriously questioning every life choice that led me to choose aviation over this glorious machine.
No airspace violations. No FAA paperwork. Just diesel, frostbite, and purpose.
Honestly? Might’ve missed my true calling.
Snow cleared. Sanity pending.
Back at it again — Wyoming’s Hot Springs County Airport, where the only thing colder than the runway is my regret at not going into snowplow logistics full-time.
No maydays, no TSA, no forms in triplicate — just the soothing growl of diesel and the hypnotic art of pushing frozen chaos into neat lines.
Aviation dream? Overrated. Snowplow life? Deeply under-appreciated.
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