The Flight within The Flight

Here I am, in that oh so familiar place, the middle seat of the main cabin. The only thing that stands out from this economy flight is that I forgot my headphones in the car and my book is, of course, stowed away in the overhead bin.

On a quest of trying to break the humdrum of my foolish mistakes (which included deleting the boundless memes on my camera roll), here I am, like a 90s journalist trying to write the next breaking story. Pretty sure all of the babies crying in this flight will not break the 24-hour news cycle, nor will the snores of my fellow passengers. Do not even get me started on those who can’t follow simple directions; I could write a whole column on them.

As the plane started to take off, I couldn’t help but think of last week, where I was the one flying the plane.

Hearing the engines whine and roar as we make our way down the runway, I feel my anticipation bubbling up. You know the feeling of climbing a roller coaster and slightly stopping at the top? Well, this was it.  But this time, as I was the one manning the mechanical bird, the feeling was just not there, behind the yoke of a Cessna.

There are some differences: the size of the aircraft, number of passengers, engines, etc. Now, we’re going down the runway at a low speed (too slow in my taste, I’m used to seeing fighter jets take off), waiting for that rush, and it never came. Just a slight jerk sensation and we were in the air!

I’m always in awe whenever I fly - I’m in the air in this tiny aircraft, the closest thing I can come to being a bird. Last week, my senses went into overdrive as I looked all around me, still not believing what I was experiencing. I looked down, and all I saw were rows upon rows of houses.

(Flying over someone's house)

I recall asking my instructor, “Bro, are we in the air?” he laughed and said, “Yeah, man, you’re flying. Tell mama we made it.”

We both laughed. After that, I was back looking at the gauges, doing slight inputs trying to stay level, my gaze on the horizon.

Let me give you a backstory on how I ended up 900 feet in the air overlooking the ocean last week.

Ninety percent of my decisions are made through intuition (even though I try to play them off as calculated).

I was going back home to Long Island to visit family, and I needed to find some activities to fill out my schedule while my people were working. And just like that, Aphrodite whispered in my ear, and I was inspired to go on a date.

I found the lucky lady that’s going to go on this mini-adventure with me. The next step was to find a one-of-a-kind activity, and what would you know, Groupon answered my prayers. I got a voucher: flying for two for $200. (This is way past my budget, but f*ck it, we here).

Boom, I hit purchase (I can hear my financial advisors, Dave Ramsey & Julius, from Everyone Hates Chris yelling at me). But, unfortunately, my joy was short-lived as it dawned on me that I should have asked my date if she was scared of heights.
I sent a text, and we’re good, and I also got the confirmation. Now it’s time to schedule the date. As I’m looking at the flight schedule, I don’t see anything for the weekend *cue the Rainbow Road music as I start to panic* She’s a working girl, a professional, she’s not about to play hooky to fly a plane with me.

We already made it too far in this plan, so I asked her and got shot down immediately. So my new problem was finding a second person who wanted to fly with me or get the voucher swapped out for a single person or cancel it altogether (at least I had options). But damn, I still had to find an activity for the date.

So I have this new problem and no solutions. So I hit up my Long Island boys group chat. My boy Johnathan accepts to go with me, but he has conditions: he must go to work later in the day.

We signed up for the morning session; problem solved (or so I thought). Fast forward to the week of, and the flight school informs me that there will be inclement weather at our scheduled time, but they can move it to another time slot.

Well, I didn’t want to fly by myself. I think this is one of those experiences that you should share with someone.

We rescheduled it for two weeks out.

 

Side note while I was driving from central Pennsylvania, there was a torrential downpour and just terrible weather at 5 am. When it was time to fly at 9 am,  it was overcast. At 11 am the sun was shining with an arrogant smirk directed at me. C’est la vie.

It was the week of my flight again, and the weather looked decent. I hit my boy Johnathan up to confirm on Wednesday for Friday. His work schedule changed, no problem.

At this point, I’ll just fly by myself, but I give it the old college try and put out an advert on Facebook. The engagement was very positive, with nothing but good vibes all around.  I got a confirmation from a college buddy Rich, he talked it out with the missus, and sadly, he was shot down later on in the day (not by her, she was cool with it, but he had some work obligations). So damn back to square one.

I accepted that I’ll be going alone, eh, at least it meant more flying time for me. I get a text from a different college friend, Suneet, at the 11^th hour, inquiring about the flight. As soon as I told him when and where he was in.

Suneet and I are long-time travel buddies. We did a 15-day Euro-trip across three countries with one of our other college mates, Robert. So traveling formed a kinship between us.

This brings us to the day of the flight. It started off rainy and foggy, but it had cleared up by the time we were supposed to take off.

When the flight started, all I could think was, Oh. My. God. I’m in the air!

I’m in the cockpit in control of an aircraft, flying towards the beach.

(Flying over Jones Beach)

From my experience on that particular plane, it reminded me of a 1990 Miata I owned. (Yes it was red, manual, and yes, Miatas are always the answer).

(Not the one I flew, but similar forgot to take a picture. Cessna 152)

It was beyond easy to fly, and it had the known go-kart feeling. It felt like it flew itself at times, but there was no autopilot; not sure if the instructor planes are simplified. It just does what it needs to do without all the frills of modern technology. 

I didn’t even notice we were in the air, all the inputs were direct (you could feel everything), and you notice when you land.

Oh damn, my prose has been going on for two hours. Am I an award-winning journalist? Anderson Cooper lookout.

The main takeaway is that if you want to fly the Miata of the sky, make sure it’s a Cessna.

I highly recommend it to everyone as long as you’re not scared of heights. There’s a checklist that ensures that you will do everything correctly; the instructor won’t let you fly if you don’t do the checklist step by step. Even commercial pilots are required to do this.

If you panic during the flight, the instructor will guide you and take control when needed. Life is all about doing things you’ve never done before. Full send on life!

(Learning the ropes with the instructor)

This experience fortified my belief that you should always have someone in your friend group who’s down to go on an adventure with you at a moment’s notice.

I’m a lucky bastard. Went from being a passenger to jumping out of them, to looking at them up ahead, and now, to flying them. Life is crazy and beautifully unexpected.

Who knows, I might want to get my pilots license. It was the most freeing thing I’ve done besides skydiving.

This is not meant to be a promo or an advert, but go check out Global Aviation Center on Long Island if you have the chance and means. They made my experience a positive and unforgettable one. Let me know if I’m wrong.

Till my next experience friends. 

(The Landing, sorry for video quality & audio)

(Photo/Video Cred: Suneet)