Present Day:

One late fall morning, Justin and Charlotte were enjoying a late, leisurely breakfast. He had lavishly prepared his special Huevos Rancheros to his girlfriend's delight. "Justin, these are fantastic and like ten bazillion calories. We definitely need to take a walk or something later to work off this mega-calorie experience."

Justin smiled at his tall, lean and very fit girlfriend. " 'Fraid I'll get fat Char?"

"No, I was just saying. You know, all I usually have is a cup of coffee and a granola bar for breakfast."

He topped off her coffee. "Right, because you get up at one of the small numbers on the clock and then go to work and fly planes. But on these nice lazy days, we can indulge a bit. I'm thinking that next weekend, you show me again how to make your Janssen family Aebleskiver recipe with buttermilk, apple slices and a side of thick sliced bacon. It's a pretty awesome late weekend breakfast and like my Huevos is also just a bit more calorific than our usual light fare."

"Yeah, just a few more calories than my usual granola bar and coffee."

As Justin topped off her coffee, Charlotte smiled at the memory of making the Scandinavian delicacy for the first time for Lena and her kids. It went over very well and the next time it became a family holiday tradition. MJ had pronounced it his favorite meal ever. Charlotte gestured to the leaves turning outside of the large kitchen window. "So, J, my weather sense tells me that we are going to have another glorious Idaho fall before we get an even more glorious ski season."

He looked out the window and then into her beautiful eyes. "How's that Char?"

She shrugged. "You know, that whole El Niño, La Niña thing, plus the doves have already arrived in pure gray plumage. Anyway, you can always depend on fall here. So, I how about we take a trip together? I was thinkin' we could go up to Lake Coer d'Alene. You know and stay at the big five-star resort on the lake and the floating golf green?"

"Sounds great Char, as long as you don't make me play golf. Anyway, and I'm not sure if NASA checks the color of the birds to predict the weather, but if you and they say Fall will hold on and it won't snow, I'm in. Hey, now that I think of it it's like an eight or ten-hour drive up to Coeur d'Alene right?"

Charlotte smiled and touched her chest where her pilot's wings were during the week. "I can rent a little plane and we can be there in less than two. I'll make sure to get a nice one, way better than Gramp's old Cub that I took you up in when you were almost 14."

Justin reached over and held her hand. "Charlotte, that plane ride, in your grandfather's old plane with just you as the pilot and me as a completely lost 14-year-old boy... My gods I loved you that day so confident smart and you, just flew me around in an airplane. I mean, I didn't believe anything like that was possible, even in the movies. And then you just did it."

Charlotte smiled. "J. I hope that your feelings won't be too hurt if I say that I gave like 12 other kids rides that day and don't really remember?"

He smiled. "No, not at all. Because I woke up with you this morning."

She squeezed his large hand and smiled. "Right, back to my plan. You know that we sold Gramp's plane after Gram died, so I'll have to rent one."

"Is that a pain?"

Charlotte shrugged again. "No, not too bad. You just have to fill out a pile of government forms, provide a logbook and medical certificate and then fly a ride with an instructor to prove to them and their insurance company that you can actually fly. Once I do that, we can rent a plane and go on a flying holiday anytime we want."

He gave her a gentle kiss. "Sounds good. Just so you know, I'll fly anywhere as long as you're the pilot."

"Good line, keep'em coming!"

The next morning, very early before leaving for her next trip, Charlotte made a cup of coffee and searched the websites of the local fixed base operators in Boise, Nampa and even out to Caldwell. She could rent an aircraft at any one of these locations but was looking for something nicer than a 30-year-old beat-up club plane. She would've liked to rent the old Super King Air she used to fly in college but the $1000/hr fuel costs and aircraft rental were a bit more than her budget would allow. She finally settled on a newer rental company which had two almost new Cirrus 4-seat aircraft. Even though they had fixed landing gear, the composite construction planes cruised at almost 180 knots and had full digital engine controls and even an emergency parachute system. At their $250/hr wet rate they were within her price range. Charlotte downloaded all the forms on the website and loaded them onto her tablet.

Later that week, from her airport hotel in L.A. she called the F.B.O. to make arrangements. The receptionist answered on the second ring. "Bronco Aviation, this is Elizabeth, how may I help you?"

"Hi, my name is Charlotte Janssen, I'm a licensed pilot and would like to get a check-out one of your two Cirrus aircraft."

The woman answered confidently. "Of course Ms. Janssen, have you been to our website?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you meet our minimum experience requirements?"

Charlotte chuckled. "Yes, I do."

"Great, all you have to do is fill in your logbook information and bring in your license and medical certificate. We can't accept copies anymore, government regulations you know."

Charlotte laughed. "Of course, what do you have on the schedule for, say Thursday or Friday this week? I'm out of town for work right now and won't be back 'til then."

"Can you hold please?"

"Of course."

Muzak from sometime in the last century played on Charlotte's phone for a couple of minutes and then the young woman was back on the line. "Ms. Janssen, I have 468-B and an instructor available at 10 AM on Thursday, will that be okay?"

Charlotte smiled. "That's perfect, I'll get all the paperwork to you and see you on Thursday morning, thanks."

Charlotte got back to Boise from L.A. late on Wednesday night and texted Justin as she left the Boise airport.

/ Got home late. Have appointment in AM. How about dinner at your place tomorrow? Love C /

/ Sounds great. Have meeting with $$$ client at 2. See you after that. Let yourself in and be naked if you want. J /

/ Maybe... /

On Thursday morning at 0945, Charlotte arrived at the Bronco Aviation facility on the northwest side of the Boise airport. As she parked the Mustang, she looked up and saw two Idaho Air National Guard A-10 fighters flying over in formation. She made a mental note to herself that the wingman was wide and aft of USAF standard. Charlotte was wearing nice-fitting jeans, a plain black T-shirt and her old US Air Force A3 leather pilot's jacket minus the military insignia. She stepped up to the counter and smiled at the receptionist who was a well-dressed woman of twenty-something. "Hi, I'm Charlotte Janssen. I think I spoke with you the other day, I have an appointment for a checkout flight."

The woman did a quick double-take at Charlotte, she seemed familiar somehow... "Yes, of course, Ms. Janssen, I have all of your paperwork and thank you for submitting it online everything appears to be in order. Makes things so much easier that way."

Elizabeth tapped her keyboard. "If I may, I have to scan your license and medical."

Charlotte presented her paper Class-1 medical certificate and three FAA issued plastic cards. "Of course. Here's my license, instructor certification and ground instructor certification. They probably don't care about that, but your website did say to provide all FAA certifications."

The woman smiled again and took the proffered plastic FAA cards and scanned them. She handed them back to Charlotte. "Excellent Ms. Janssen. Your instructor is Bryson Taylor. He'll be right here."

For the next six to nine minutes, Charlotte wandered around the FBO lobby looking at the old photos of Idaho aviation history. She tried a cup of coffee, but it was, stale and bitter so she just tossed it. Finally, her instructor arrived. She groaned a bit when she saw him. He was a tall, skinny young man and couldn't be a day over 22. She laughed to herself, at that same age she had been a commercial charter pilot herself before joining the Air Force

The young man fumbled a bit with his flight bag and paperwork as he looked at his new student. She was tall, beautiful, and exuded confidence. She also looked familiar for some reason. Before he could think of something to say, she offered her hand. "Hi, you must be Mr. Taylor. I'm Charlotte Janssen and I'll be your student for the day."

The young CFI fumbled a bit with a folder of paperwork and then regained his composure. "Um, hi. I'm Bryson, and I'll be your instructor today Ms. Janson. "

Charlotte smiled again. "It's Janssen, just say it with a Y, not a J."

"Sorry."

The strikingly beautiful woman smiled at him. "That's okay, I've been telling people how to pronounce my name for as long as I can remember."

He looked at a printout that the office manager had given him. "Ms. Janssen, this flight was a late add to my schedule so I haven't really had time to go over your details, but the front desk told me that you had your license and meet the minimum experience requirements for a checkout on the Cirrus."

Charlotte nodded and gave him a wry smile "Yes, I need something local I can fly with a decent cruise speed and full IFR capabilities. I really didn't want to rent another ratty old Cessna 172 ever again. The Cirrus seems to be a cute little plane and should meet my mission requirements."

"Great then, I'm all set up in briefing room #3. Just follow me. We have to do one hour of ground and one hour of flight as a minimum. Have you gone over the P.O.H?"

Charlotte smiled and removed the newly purchased Cirrus Owner's Handbook from her old leather flight USAF bag. "Couple of times this week."

Taylor smiled. "Awesome, I have a Power Point with aircraft orientation and one on our local area, but you are from around here, right?"

Charlotte nodded. "Yes, I'm a local Boise girl, but did most of my flying out of Nampa."

He nodded. "Super, that'll make things go quicker. Okay, let me go over your logbook and check currencies."

Bryson then took a couple of minutes to more carefully review Charlotte's paperwork and logbook info. He started with the application form. The young flight instructor quickly glanced at the top line of the form. "Okay, Ms. Janssen, this says that you have over 450 hours of pilot in command time. That's way more than the 250 minimum."

Charlotte smiled and tapped the form. "Add another zero, try 4,500 hours Bryson."

His eyes went wide. "Um, wow, sorry. Thought that was a typo."

He took a more careful look at the form and then at the beautiful young woman and asked. "How did you get so many hours, Ms. Janssen?"

Charlotte smiled and pointed out the window at the busy runway. "Well, I took my first lesson at 12 and worked my way through Boise State as a weekend and summer CFI. I also flew a bit of backcountry Charter before joining the Air Force for ten years."

"Hmm, this says your last landing was yesterday in a B738. Is that a Beech?"

Charlotte shook her head. "Boeing 737 dash 800. I'm a pilot for Alaska now."

He scanned her flight information with wide eyes. "I recognize the 900 hours in the J5 as a Piper Cub, but I'm guessing that the 3,500 hours with 3,000 as PIC in the C17 is probably not an old Cessna tail dragger."

Charlotte nodded. "Yes, in a previous life, I was a C-17 IP for the USAF, but now I'm just a regular civilian."

The young flight instructor shook his head again. "Wow, that's a lot of hours."

Charlotte gave him a bright smile. "Well, I started out just like I'm sure that you did. I had my Private at 17 and Commercial and CFI at 18 and went from there."

"Okay then, I'll just put on my Flight Instructor hat and we'll go from there, but if you want to give me any, um, sage advice on how to get ahead in this business, I'd appreciate it."

Charlotte smiled again. "It's a deal Bryson, but I'm positive that you know WAY more about the Cirrus than I do, so I am your student for today, and please call me Char, all of my friends do."

Charlotte's young flight instructor went through a Power Point presentation describing all of the local area airspace to include the small National Guard artillery range and the large US Air Force training area straddling the Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon border area. He explained to Charlotte. "The Idaho Training Range is mostly MOA's so legally we can fly there but there are also two different areas of restricted airspace, so I just recommend to my students to STFO."

Charlotte smiled and nodded. "That's good advice to give civilian pilots. You never know what's going on in Special Use Military airspace, you know practice bombs flying through the air, supersonic fighters dogfighting, and people air-dropping stuff and people out of perfectly good airplanes."

After their required classroom session, Bryson showed Charlotte how to sign out an aircraft and fill out all the government forms and then collect keys from the locker behind the desk. Finally, they made their way out onto the flight line to the designated aircraft. Bryson gestured to the clean and well-maintained late-model Cirrus SR-20. "This is our newest tail number, she has the 315 horsepower fuel-injected FADEC engine and a very nice Garmin touchscreen panel."

To Charlotte's approval, Bryson made sure to use the checklist to show her how to preflight the aircraft. Over the course of the next hour or so, Bryson gave Charlotte an aircraft and local area orientation and they practiced the required numbers of landings and simulated emergency procedures to satisfy the insurance company. Charlotte's final landing of the day was of course a perfect greaser.

They returned to the FBO Bryson filled out some more forms and smiled at Charlotte. "Well Ms. Janssen. That was quite a pleasure, you're certainly quite a cut above my normal checkout student. It was an honor flying with you and let me know if you need anything."

Charlotte shook his hand and said. "You did great today Bryson thank you. I look forward to flying here now and again and as you move forward in your career if you have any questions about the next step, you know charter flying around here or even in the USAF please give me a call, I mean it."

Bryson smiled. "I might take you up on that Ms. Jannsen."

The following Saturday morning bright and early, Charlotte and Justin drove in his old truck to the airport and checked out the same nearly new aircraft Charlotte had flown earlier that week. As they loaded their bags in the backseat of the sleek white aircraft Justin asked. "Char I don't know how you do it. One day you're flying a big jet and the next this little bug smasher."

Charlotte smiled. "Well, you know I started in that little Piper Cub of my grandfather's and then moved up to planes that weren't anywhere near as nice as this little beauty and then that twin-engine turboprop I used to fly in the summers. But you know, I've always liked basic flying and just looking out the window and going where we want to go. There is way more freedom and a whole lot less restrictions than in my last two real jobs if you know what I mean. So anyway, hop in and I'll take you across our beautiful Idaho and up to Coeur d'Alene for a very romantic weekend."

The young couple couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to go flying. After departing the busy Treasure Valley area Charlotte followed the Salmon River on one side of the mountains and they reveled at the sites and scenery along the way. It was a geologic tour of every biome in the state of Idaho. The green farm fields of the Snake River valley gave way to the pine forests and then to the rugged granite mountains and flowing rivers and canyons. They flew over lava fields from extinct volcanoes and finally to the beautiful glacier Lake at the far north part of the state in the Stove Pipe between Oregon and Montana. Upon arriving Charlotte did a gentle two-seventy around the lake to set up for landing at the small lakeside airport. It was less than a two-hour flight instead of a long road trip which would've taken nearly 10 hours on narrow mountain roads.

They parked their small rented aircraft and removed their bags just in time to have a young woman who couldn't have been more than 19 drive up in an immaculate four-seat golf cart. The girl smiled at the young couple. "Welcome to Coeur d'Alene. I'll take you to the FBO and then there's a courtesy van waiting totake you two up to the resort."