By HARRY CLARKE
WHAT did Jessica Gawne do to overcome her fear of flying?
Naturally, she decided to become a pilot.
“It’s definitely a pretty unusual way to get into something, but after my first flying lesson I was hooked,” she said.
Next Sunday morning, September 19, Jess and a group of fellow hobby aviators from the Chinchilla district will be hosting a ‘fly in’ at the local aerodrome.
A fleet of light aircraft are swooping in from across the wider region so that pilots can catch up over breakfast and coffee.
Get a bunch of people together who all have the same, shared interest, and they won’t shut up about it. Jess said that’s precisely the point.
“I do feel sorry for the husbands and wives of pilots,” she said.
“If you fly, typically you love flying and you love planes and you want to talk about it, so any chance we get to catch up and talk with other pilots about it, is a lot of fun.”
Jess said there were about a dozen recreational pilots in the Chinchilla area, who regularly attended fly-in events in surrounding towns.
One will be held in Miles this weekend, timed to coincide with the community’s annual Back to the Bush festival.
“A lot of aviation clubs are very social places to be,” Jess said.
“In Chinchilla there’s been a lot of commercial flying in recent years but on the recreational side, we don’t really have a lot of social activities.
“We’re really looking forward to catching up, having some brekky together and talking about aviation. Some people are heading in to town to visit the markets. It should be fun.”
