Thursday 4th June 2009 – Flights of Fancy

Yesterday I was dreaming of having my own train. Today, my horizons have widened: I met a man with a two-plane garage. He took me up for a look round the lake and the dam. He and his neighbours have their own runway. He took me up in his treasured Aeronica Champ, a plane almost as old as me. One of his neighbours offered to take pictures.

The Champ is made mainly of cotton: honest, no kidding – cotton. As you can see, it's a 'tandem' two-seat trainer, and you can see from the occupants (that's me in the back) that it's quite small. What you can't see is that the 'stick', of which there are two, is actually just a stick. It is very lively in the turbulance.

I bet you didn't know aerial photography was difficult. Neither did I. But I do now. I took a lot of footage of struts, and wings, and insides of the windows. It pretty quickly became apparent that I ought to stop taking pictures of what I was doing and start doing it. Which was a good decision.

I've said before that if nobody told you, you'd be hard pushed to see the dam at all, but from the air it's as clear as anything. It was really thrilling, particularly being so low in such a small aeroplane. And pictures of me doing it were ready and waiting on a CD when I landed. I felt like the Queen.

Then we went up to Glasgow to take some pictures there. Glasgow is twenty miles north. On the way up we could see these vast farms, with little groups of buildings in the middle of nowhere. Some of them also had curious circular fields. This is to do with the irrigation method: there is a water source in the middle of the field, connected to a long, wheeled, radial pipe of sprays, which is then driven round at the perimeter.

I had been asked to take a 'cover' photo of Glasgow, which forced me to think about the primitive features of the place. Having circled for some time, it became clear that the picture was the juxtaposition of the meandering Milk River, and the brief coming together of the great Northern Railway and US Highway 2. Again, the camera would insist on focusing on the window, or the window would reflect light, or the air would change density under the wings. Maybe if I practiced I could get good at this aerial photography: or maybe not.

I was as excited as a small boy afterwards. But it hadn't quite ended. We went down to the fabulous Fort Peck Hotel for dinner, and met up with another flyer, who had been out looking for lost cattle. Apparently when the lake freezes, they can get round the fences, and aren't really missed till this time of year. Of course, the ranchers know where they're likely to have gone. He said where he found them, the cowboys would need to be on horseback to drive them out.