Wild blue yonder….

By Sun Advocate

For 10 year old Stanley Bradshaw it was his first plane flight.
For his relatives on the plane it was worth the view of his face when the craft lifted off the ground.
For everyone, except for Mark Francis the pilot, it was a view of the Tavaputs Plateau and Desolation Canyon that none of them had ever seen.
But to soar in the air over places that had only been seen from the ground is a whole new experience and it leads to a world of wonder and places that most don’t even know exist.
It was late May and the snow was still on the mountaintops when the Redtail Aviation plane took off from the Price Airport. On the first lift Bradshaw’s face lit up with a big smile.
Francis piloted the craft up over the mountains, continually climbing and soon the airborne crew was over Bruin Point.
“There’s Butch and Jeanies ranch,” said Francis as he referred to the Jensen’s place on the top of the plateau. The buildings and the roads to it were still completely snowed in.
Then Francis took the plane down a side canyon down to the Green River where Desolation Canyon spreads out toward the south.
A quick flight over Range Creek and then on to the San Rafael Swell where the views expose the red rock areas for what they are, canyons cut into an uplifted dome.
Back over into Carbon County where the plane circles some familiar houses to the occupants from an unfamiliar viewpoint, and then back to the airport.
All that seen and done in less than an hour and a half, yet the possibilities of new things observed will stick for a long time in the minds of those who went on the flight.
An airplane is a way to see a lot in a short time, and to see things in a different perspective. The views of familiar roads and trails reveal unfamiliar traits of the land just off the beaten path. And unfamiliar places are introduced to those adventurous enough to pursue them later on the ground.
For Bradshaw the thrill of hanging in the air on a pair of small wings was enough to wet his appetite for flight. The scenery was just a sidelight to the way the plane functioned, the feelings one experiences gliding through the sky and the quick descents that sometimes leave a stomach behind.
The fact is everyone should take a flight in a small plane over where they live and to familiar places. It’s like finding a room behind a wall in a home that no one knew existed or discovering that small waterfall just off a lake that one has fished on for many years.
It’s the same old world viewed in a different way.