Chuck soloed and got his pilot's license. He did not have an instrument rating so we flew only on clear days. The first time we planned to fly "home" to visit his folks and my Mom, we woke up on departure day to rain. So we waited until the rain stopped and the weather cleared - we were able to leave a day or so later. The flight to his folks took about 6 hours. Driving took considerably longer. One time we made the trip in 4.5 hours - great tail wind that day!
The charts pilots use are lots different than the maps we use when we drive. They show all kinds of landmarks from race tracks to the location of TV and radio towers. These landmarks help pilots with "I Follow the Roads" ratings to see where they are. There's one chart that shows a large letter "M" or "W" - I don't really remember what the letter is but it is in Wisconsin. More than once we circled water towers in different towns to check exactly where we were!
One time we took off to fly to Kansas. As we flew more and more clouds formed beneath us until we were on top of a cloud layer with no breaks where we could see the ground. It was disconcerting at the least and scary at the most! Chuck was very calm. He told me to mark off a segment on the chart every five minutes on our route. I did this for about twenty minutes or so. Then we saw a break in the clouds. We saw the northeastern corner of Kansas where the river cuts the corner. We were exactly where I had ploteed we would be! I was very proud of us!
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