Musings boundaries borders neighborhoods

We were expected to come immediately. At 7, I got my first bicycle. I could roam Nocona, a small Texas town of about 3,200 (counting both graveyards), without restriction, but streetlights and dinnertime still ruled. Later, at 15, my own car took me places my parents wouldn’t approve of, but midnight was a firm rule. The border was how far I could drive; the boundary was home by midnight.

A neighborhood is how far you’d go for lunch or the beach and have time to come home that night or the next morning. Your neighborhood is your comfort zone. Friends and family live there, and you know the routes and shortcuts. In 1979, at the age of 28, I bought my 1964 Mooney. I suddenly realized I lived in a larger world, with borders yet to be explored. At first this included Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. A move to Virginia expanded my range to the entire eastern seaboard. I no longer felt constrained by the limits of my town, state, or nation.

Without my father’s whistle, I had to judge when and where a trip was a good idea. In 1981 I made my first over-ocean flight to visit my dad on Nevis, a small island about 80 miles south of St. Maarten. I had owned the Mooney for about a year and a half and had a total of 150 hours in my logbook, VFR only. I was probably lucky, but the Caribbean is mostly good weather or hurricanes, and they are relatively easy to tell apart. On a night a few years later, headed east from Puerto Rico on an IFR clearance, dodging buildups, San Juan approach called out “N28X, now leaving controlled airspace. Have a nice night.” GPS and loran were not a thing, and the nondirectional beacon on St. Kitts was inop. No worries; I knew the distance and bearing, and found the shore waves flashing phosphorescently as we approached St. Kitts.

My trips to the islands became frequent enough that ground handlers and tower controllers became familiar with my aircraft’s unusual paint scheme and greeted me by name. Pilots have substantially replaced sea captains as the informal links to relatives scattered among the islands. A hand-delivered birthday gift or get-well card knits families and friends together. After giving an around-the-island flight to a customs agent, including waving at his house, I never again paid duty when arriving with a lawn mower or a computer for my dad. Generally, a pilot doesn’t have to buy their own drinks if they are a part of the inter-island neighborhood.

Flying aerobatics in Europe pushed my borders out and I found good fellows in several countries. Many endure as favorites today. I’m proud to wear a Polish Aerobatic Team patch and will forever be in their debt. Gradually, word spread, and introductions accumulated.

My first Mooney flight to South America was in 2012. I checked my 9-year-old grandson out of second grade, telling the principal we were headed off in a small airplane for three months below the Equator. “But how will he get an education!?” “Did you hear the part about flying around in South America?” I replied. He ended up enrolled in the “Uruguay-American School” in Mercedes, Uruguay, quickly picking up playground Spanish and the rudiments of fútbol. I lured the boy by promising to take him to the piranha petting zoo. A simple lad, he took the bait. We made the entire trip from northern Nevada to Buenos Aires and back without filing IFR. That is a carefully parsed sentence. Nothing calms an agitated immigration or customs officer like a garrulous lad with a hundred rapid-fire questions. Want great photos from your trip? Give a child their own point-and-shoot. People engage laughing children, not grownups.

Pilots have substantially replaced sea captains as the informal links to relatives scattered among the islands.I’m busy expanding my neighborhood again. My wife and I have already set up a home in Colombia, halfway up an Andean mountainside. We’ve been negotiating for permission to temporarily base the airplane here, obtain airplane insurance to cover the Western Hemisphere, confirm the details for landing and entry permits to several countries, and thinking through the logistics of aircraft maintenance and spare parts in unequipped places. The local field, SKMZ, is at 6,860 feet, with one-way-in-one-way-out operations, and no published instrument approaches. It does have scheduled airline service! Nearby terrain rises to nearly 18,000 feet. It’s a volcano. It smokes. A big eruption in 1985 reduced the population by 25,000 people.

Different than our three-month visit in 2012, we expect to branch out across South America, seeking sights, cultures, and new neighbors not available via airliners or tour buses. The internet has already connected us to GA pilots in Brazil and Argentina, plus several here in Colombia. I hope to reconnect with one of my former students, Pablo Landoni, who became the youngest first officer in Argentine history. My wife is a Latina, and she will take over from the charming, hyperactive child, making sure we’re not overly delayed by bureaucrats.

Boundaries come from hard-learned lessons, respect for others, and a sense of self preservation. Borders are where the next lessons begin. Neighborhoods are where you are welcome, and anxious to return.

Don Peterson is a flight instructor and A&P/IA with more than 40 years of flying experience.