Flying Lesson

In 1992 I flew a plane and a helicopter. Actually had the controls in my hands. It was a gift from my wife at the time. This was my recollection after the event. Tomorrow, I will dig up my recollection of paragliding over the Alps.

FLYING LESSON

Jan. 22, 1992
Well, I did it. I flew. No, I didn’t go see Peter Pan and run down the center aisle yelling, “I’m flying, I’m flying!” No, I really did fly. I soared up into the sky and conversed with the clouds.
I climbed, with some difficulty, I must add, into the cockpit of a Cessna and settled into the pilot’s seat with a very brave instructor in the passenger seat.
After showing me all the instruments, dials, levers and whatevers, he handed me the keys and said, “Turn it on.”
I did and that began a half hour of an incredible experience — the simultaneous feelings of fear and exhilaration.
Then the plane began to taxi toward the runway.
Actually, my instructor — Bob — took the plane to the runway, demonstrated how to steer by using his feet, revved the engine up to its pre-flight foreplay and then positioned it on Our Runway — 34 something or other. He then told me how to increase speed and showed me what to look for on one of the dials and we started moving down the runway with both my hands on the wheel, watching until the speedometer reached that magic number and then I pulled back on the wheel and that sucker started to leave the comfortable confines of Earth, well, lower-cased earth. I mean, we’re not that advanced yet.
What a thrill to actually have that plane in my hands and the nose heading up into the sky. (Thank God for small favors, eh) and watching the altimeter climb.
I was satisfied at 1,000 feet, but Bob said we would level off at 2,000 so we kept climbing and I looked down and my stomach was talking to me, but only slightly because I was concentrating on everything Bob was telling me.
We finally hit 2,000 and Bob talked me through leveling and then we did some gentle banks and I saw the Blue Ridge Mountains in front of us and a setting sun through scattered clouds and I was really enjoying myself.
Well, I was really enjoying myself until, as I was doing a gentle bank to the left, we hit turbulence, the wings shot perpendicular to earth and I thought we were going belly-up and my stomach was in my feet while a million little needles shot through my entire body.
But WE got the plane settled in and level again and I was so glad Bob had great survival instincts.
We flew around in very large circles for a while and Bob talked me into climbing some more and I pulled back on the wheel and the nose went up and I couldn’t see the horizon anymore and there is something just a little scary about not seeing the earth anymore so I leveled again and then Bob said, OK, descend for a bit and I pushed the wheel in and we nosed down and picked up speed, which was exactly what Bob wanted me to experience. And that was a little scary.
And he showed me and I did steer the plane with the foot pedals to yaw instead of banking. And then he convinced me to take my right hand off the wheel, using my left hand to steer and my right hand to work the throttle and increase and decrease speed.
Now, I gotta tell ya, sitting up there with little houses 2,000 feet below me, with one hand on the wheel and one on the throttle and doing all those wonderful things can really do something to your psyche and it did. But not enough to get cocky because we still had that turbulence up there and it didn’t take any convincing at all to hug that wheel with both hands again.
Then we had to go home and, funny thing, I could not see the damn airport. Fortunately, Bob knew the area pretty well from up there and he guided me in as I banked and descended, but when it was time to really slow down for the landing, it was time to stop playing pilot and give that puppy back to Bob, who brought us in all the time showing me how to lower the flaps for the drag and come in for a perfect landing.
The first thing I thought when I got out of the plane? I want to go up again. Soon.

I haven't been up again. I did return for a lesson in a helicopter. Again, we went up 2,000 feet. Now, talk about scary. I was sitting in a seat surrounded by a glass bubble. It was as though there was nothing between me and the outside. Then there was the mechanics of it -- working both hands and both feet, the big blades over my head and the blades behind us and moving forward and stopping and hovering and turning. Bob had me bring the chopper down and then rise and hover about ten feet above the ground. Now, you can't do that in a plane.

I have been up in two hot air balloons and parasailing in the Bahamas, but never wrote about those experiences. In one ballooning trip, we were the only ones up. It is amazing to be up so high in a gondola that only comes up to your waist. When it was time to descend, the pilot thought he had a place to land, but it turned out to be a golf course and he had to bring it up quickly and the gondola brushed the top of a tree giving us a bit of a bounce. Then he brought us down near a road and when the follow truck arrived, he blasted the jet and lifted the balloon up into the bed of the truck. Now, that's piloting!
Tomorrow, sailing 3,000 feet over the Alps strapped to a sail.