First Flight

For many years, I have wanted to learn how to fly. When I was a kid my father bought an IBM PCjr for Christmas one year. One of the programs he bought was Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Ever since then, I've always had a version of Flight Simulator lying around. I never got around to doing the real thing because I never had the time or money for flight lessons. A couple of weeks ago I realized, that at this point of my life, I did, in fact, have the time and money for flight lessons. I called the flight school at Pearson Airfield in Vancouver to schedule an introductory flight lesson.

I spent a lot of time searching for blogs and web-sites about people's first flight, but still didn't know what to expect. When I got to the airfield, it was busy. Two planes were parked by the fuel pump and another plane was taking off. As I walked towards the flight school's office, I noticed a police office standing by the door. What happened? Did I just book my first flight with the same flight school that Al Qaeda uses? I walked passed the officer, wondering if he was going to stop me. He didn't and by the time I checked-in, he was gone.

I checked-in with the flight school and the paperwork part of my lesson began. After signing all my rights away, I was told my flight instructor would be with me soon and that I should have a seat. There were several people in the waiting room, chatting about their recent flights, weather conditions, and (gulp) aborted landings because the pilot realized that the runway he was trying to land on was a road. I wondered if he was my flight instructor.

My flight instructor arrives (not aborted landing guy) and tells me it's going to be a few minutes. She needs to do the pre-flight check. I had read that in some introductory flights, you get to do pre-flight check with the instructor. I was a little disappointed about not getting the entire experience, but I'm sure she didn't want some pesky student asking a bunch of stupid questions while she is trying to figure out if the plane is going to fly today.

While waiting for my instructor to do the flight check, I realized that I was actually really excited about getting to fly. Since it had rained for most of the week, I assumed that the weather would have been bad and that I wouldn't get to go out. I didn't let my hopes get up. But it was a sunny, brilliant day. In a few minutes, I was going to get to do something that I've been wanting to do for over 20 years! The last time I've been this excited was when I was having dinner at
The French Laundry.

My flight instructor returned and we walked out to our plane, a Cessna 150, called the creamcicle because of its orange color. My flight instructor accurately called it a go-kart with wings. The Cessna 150 has a 100 horsepower engine and can go about 100 miles per hour. My instructor told me to get in on the left side, the captain's seat. My friends from college probably think that the first thing I did was point my right finger forward and, in my best Patrick Stewart voice, say "engage". They would be wrong. (Although, it took an enormous amount of will power NOT to do it.) The instructor went over a brief overview of all the instruments and controls. We strapped ourselves in and closed the doors.

Or, at least, I tried to close my door. The darn thing wouldn't shut. After three tries, I held the door latch open, closed the door, then closed the latch. The door seemed to be shut. Then, the instructor said, "Don't worry if the door opens during the flight." WHAT??!!?? According to her, the slipstream around the plane will keep the door shut, or at least it wouldn't open that much. Seemed to make sense to me and she obviously knew what she was talking about. Besides, what are the chances of the door opening in flight anyway?

She started the engine and started to taxi towards the runway. During taxi, she asked me to test the brakes with the pedals on my side of the plane. (The Cessna 150 has two rudder petals with brakes at the top of each pedal.) I gently apply the brakes and almost flip the plane over. I'm exaggerating, but those brakes seemed more touchy then the ones in my car (maybe I should get the brakes on my car checked out.) After getting clearance from PDX (Pearson airport lies in the path of PDX) we announce our takeoff and taxi onto the runway.

This is it! I'm finally going to get to fly. Other than testing the brakes, my instructor had the airplane since taxi. She pulled the throttle and we began our takeoff roll. I'm not sure what to look at, the controls or out the window. I start looking off to my left. What the hell am I doing? I've never had the chance to watch a takeoff from the cockpit of a plane, and here I am looking off to the side. I looked forward out the window. We accelerated. The end of the runway got closer, and closer, and closer. Uhh...are we going to take off? At the last moment (or what seemed to be at the time) we took off...and my door promptly opened.

I was ready to panic, but my instructor didn't say anything about the door, so I figured everything was cool. I tried closing it again, but no luck. The door only opened a fraction, as my flight instructor predicted. Actually, I wasn't that worried about falling out of the plane. What I was worried about was my wallet falling out of my back pocket and onto some lucky recipient below. Nonetheless, I'm going close to 100 m.p.h. at 1,000 feet and my door is open. Super.

We head to the practice area that is to the west of Vancouver, south of the Columbia in Oregon. My flight instructor pointed out other airplanes in the area. I couldn't see all the planes that she was pointing out. That, of course, worried me. Even at speeds of 100 m.p.h., two planes flying towards each other wouldn't have that much time to change course. You would think it would be easy to see their navigation lights (the red and green lights on the wings of the plane) or their beacon, but on this bright, sunny, hazy day, the only thing I saw was the sun reflecting off the fuselages of the other planes.

She hands the controls over to me. I am supposed to try and keep the plane straight and level. This wasn't very difficult because it seemed that was what the plane wanted to do. We did a shallow right turn and then a shallow left turn. I was overwhelmed by the number of things that I was supposed to monitor; the angle of the turn, the altitude, the coordination of the turn, and finally, always looking out for other aircraft. I realized that I was concentrating so much, I was forgetting to have fun. We did some sharp turns at 45 degrees. This was the only part of the flight where I began to feel motion sickness. But it passed quickly and it didn't become a problem.

My flight instructor took the controls and we headed back to the airport. All the while, my flight instructor is making radio calls to other pilots in the area announcing our position and our intention. There was some communication with a pilot who was going to land behind us. I remember reading on other pilot's blogs about their difficulty with radio communications. I thought it was because they had issues with public speaking. In a previous job, I had to do a lot of public speaking, so I thought the radio probably wouldn't be a problem for me. But as I listened to my instructor and the other pilot communicate, I heard the words, but did not understand them. It was another language. I now understand why people have difficulty with the radio. I think I am going to have difficulty also.

As my flight instructor approached the runway, she seemed to adjust every control in the cockpit. Landing sure looks complicated. The landing was a lot smoother than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting some body-jolting landing. But it was smoother than a lot of commercial flights I've taken. We taxied off the runway and to parking. We parked the plane, tied the creamsicle down (the tie the plane down lest a gust of winds comes along and flips the plane over), and went over some of the plane's mechanics.

The experience was pretty much what I had expected (except for the door part). I was ready for more. I scheduled another lesson with my flight instructor and bought some textbooks. I think the next few months are going to be a lot of fun.