The Challenge
Last September I celebrated 52 trips around the sun. I don’t think the wisps of smoke coming up from the birthday candles had faded away before my wife offered up a suggestion.
“A friend of mine did something every week for 52 weeks when she turned 52,” Kathy said as the grandkids looked longingly at the cake. “What if you flew once a week for the next 52 weeks?”
Hmm… I thought. She’s trying to get me to fly more! This is almost as good as back in 2016 when she said, “I know you’ve always wanted to fly, why don’t you get your pilot’s license, buy a plane, and fly me to see the grandkids?”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I have the best wife in the world.
What would it take to fly for 52 consecutive weeks? I needed to stay healthy, motivated, have no major issues with the plane, and pay attention to the calendar. That all sounds reasonable, right? I told myself that I normally try to fly once a week anyway so this would be no big deal. It mostly wasn’t a big deal, but parts of it turned out to be a very big deal.
The Rules
The ground rules were that I must complete at least one flight every week, with the week starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday. If I was only a passenger, such as when acting as safety pilot, it wouldn’t count. Commercial travel wouldn’t count either, but that should go without saying. Crammed into a giant aluminum tube with a few hundred of your best friends you never met just doesn’t qualify, even if you have the window seat.
It Begins
On September 18th, a few days after my birthday, I kicked off Week 1 with some instrument approaches for currency. Two days later I put that to work on an IFR flight from Fullerton, CA, to Mesa-Gateway, AZ, with some actual IMC and a little cloud surfing thrown in for fun. Just like that, I was off to the races.
Over the next 52 weeks I would make a total of 86 flights, log 131.5 hours, log over 21,000 miles, and visit 26 different airports in 6 different states. Seven of the airports were new to me, and one of the states was a new one checked off the list.
I stumbled into the 100-year anniversary celebration at the Compton-Woodley Airport while giving a friend a ride to pick up his Mooney and had a great time wandering through the booths they had set up. I was impressed by the local community’s turnout. I flew farther north than I had ever been, landing at Pearson Field in Vancouver, WA. I went to some “off the beaten path” airports with a group out of Redlands that does a monthly fly-in and gave some folks their first rides in a small plane.
There was one evening that I drove an hour through Southern California traffic to fly one trip around the pattern. It was the only chance I would have that week to get a flight in, and I really didn’t feel like flying (can I say that out loud?)—and I definitely didn’t feel like sitting in traffic—but I wasn’t going to let that break the streak.
When it came time for annual, I went flying on a Sunday afternoon to buy myself 13 days on the calendar. Then during evenings after work, I pulled all the inspection panels and took the day off Friday to meet my IA for his inspection. A full day at the hangar Friday and Saturday had almost everything completed, and I was ready to fly by the following Saturday, keeping the streak alive.
As I look back on the year, there were probably 3-4 times that if I wasn’t trying to reach my goal, I probably would have spent the time on the couch.
The Highlights
The real treasure along the way was what we initially got the Mooney for: to spend more time with family. Mom had a really tough year and eventually passed away on December 11th. That 2nd flight of the 52 weeks when I went to Arizona was to surprise mom. She was back in the hospital. I just flew out by myself, grabbed an Uber at the airport, and showed up at her hospital room. She was completely shocked to see me come through the door, and at the same time overjoyed.
Mom summoned the entire family—kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids—for Thanksgiving. Nobody was really talking about it possibly being her last Thanksgiving, but I know a lot of us were thinking it. Once again, the Mooney came through, avoiding all the holiday traffic on the roads and giving us yet another irreplaceable memory.
On September 13th, 2025, we made our last flight of the 52 weeks by checking a couple of sites off the bucket list. We flew up to Half Moon Bay, descending through a marine layer, and had lunch at the airport before fueling up and departing into what were now clear blue skies to fly the San Francisco Bay.
Fullerton Tower has one of the best controllers in the system. She had surprised me a few months before by asking, “What week are you on?” when I called up for taxi clearance. Her husband is also a controller and had seen my posts on social media about the challenge, and they were following along. She happened to be the one working on the 13th, and I gave her a heads up as she handed me off to SoCal.
Tower: “Mooney 1015 Echo, have a good trip. Contact SoCal now 125.35, good flight.”
Me: “125.35, this is week 52.”Tower: “Yippee, congratulations. You made it, huh?”
Me: “Yes ma’am, thanks, have a great day.”
Tower: “Thanks, you too.”
I checked in with SoCal as we climbed toward the thin marine layer above. She had me ident, and then started to box me around in the climb to keep me out of her approaches coming into John Wayne.
SoCal: “And Mooney 15 Echo, congratulations on your 52 weeks of flying.”
Me: “Thank you ma’am.”
SoCal: “You’re welcome.”5 ½ hours later we were inbound after our stop in Half Moon Bay and tour of the San Francisco Bay, and it was still the same controller working the tower. She cleared us to land number 2 behind a Cessna.
Tower: “Mooney 15 Echo, and is today the big birthday too?”
Me: “Negative, that will be on Monday.”
Tower: “Oh, well happy birthday, I won’t be here on Monday.”
Me: “Thank you very much!”
Tower: “Congratulations, you did it.”
Me: “Yes ma’am, and you passed the info to approach.”
Tower: “Yeah, she was so excited.”
It was the perfect capstone to a year-long goal. But if I’m being honest, the flight earlier in the week was the epitome of why we purchased the Mooney. I had a niece getting married in Salt Lake, and Kathy was making the wedding cake, so she went up a few days early. I needed to work so I stayed behind and flew up for the wedding on Saturday. Sunday, we flew back together, making a stop in St. George to have lunch with our son before continuing to California. A fast trip to see family, exactly what the Mooney was meant for.
What's Next
What’s next now that I checked off the 52 weeks? I think I’ll see how much longer I can take the streak before life gets in the way and cuts it off in one form or another. I don’t know what the final number will be, but as of today I’m currently at 61 consecutive weeks.
