Aviation Moments

• My first airplane ride - It wasn't an airplane. It was a helicopter. I was six or seven, and we were at Niagara Falls. I'll never forget me and my dad waiting in line to ride the funny-looking machine. When it was our turn, joy! The pilot gave us an extra ten minutes. We flew over the falls and I was enraptured. We were like giants, like gods. I never knew how good it felt to just move freely in that third dimension
• My first solo - I started taking lessons when I was 17, but only took a few hours. Then I started again when I was in my 30s as part of a Christmas present. It was fairly uneventful stuff -- I got into a little plane with an instructor and buzzed around the neighborhood. But to me, it was life-or-death, edge-of-your seat drama. I knew that one day, my instructor would stop the plane during one of our landings, get out, and tell me something like "why don't you try the next few on your own"? When that day happened, there was nothing like it in my entire world of experience. Once the plane started rolling for takeoff, and the wheels left the ground, I was acutely aware that I had to get this thing back on the ground or I would die. It all turned out well, of course, but it was an immensely exciting experience. I felt like a new person afterwards. My instructor said something like "Now you'll never be the same again". He was right.
• My Private Pilot checkride - All of this training led up to The Checkride: the time when you have to get in a plane with somebody else and prove you're smart enough not to kill yourself. The Checkride and the license doesn't mean you can fly really, it means they trust you enough to continue learning to fly with other people in the plane. I remember just glowing after the whole thing for a couple of days. Wow.
• Leaving the schmucks on the ground - Once I got my license, of course, I had to do something with it. So I flew to work, which at the time was in Cleveland, Ohio. I'll never forget flying home one April evening. As I took off from Elyria, Ohio, and turned direct to Lynchburg, Virginia, I looked down and saw hundreds and hundreds of cars on the interstate in huge traffic jam. It went on for miles. They were the other schmucks on their way home that evening. While their commute probably took an hour and mine took a bit longer, they sat there in gridlock watching the taillights of the car in front of them breathing exhaust fumes while I cruised through the sky like a bird. I really felt sorry for those guys.
• My instrument checkride - Instrument flying is unlike anything that people naturally do. It's a heads-down, technical skill that requires attention to detail and the ability to multi-task. I guess it could be compared to putting together a jigsaw puzzle with razor-sharp edges with one hand while trying to wash a dog with the other. While talking on the phone about something else. I always tell people that flying is a study in real-time fluid dynamics where if you get the equations wrong you go ker-splat. That's a close analogy. When I took my instrument checkride, I took off wearing a hood over my head where I could not see anything outside the airplane. The instructor put stickers over various instruments and made me work with what was left. It was 2 or 3 hours of hell, let me tell you. When it was over, however, I was covered in sweat, shaking, and I had aced the exam. What a feeling!
• Gusty winds practice approaches - As part of training, I used to love to go up with an instructor whenever things were marginal. First, it gave me an insight into how prepared I was for flying, since instructors usually aren't suicidal. It also gave me experience training outside of my comfort zone, which is priceless. Part of that was doing touch-and-goes during windy or gusty conditions. What a hoot! The wind would buck the plane around and as a pilot, you're always compensating for gusts and eddies. In addition, wind close to the ground is different than wind a few hundred feet up. Local landmarks like towers, mountains, and such make it more tricky. It was a blast. Much better than riding an amusement park ride, and later on, when I had to make landings in windy conditions, it gave me a higher comfort level and competence. Very cool.
• The first time I shot an approach to minimums - Once you get all of these licenses, you have to do something with them. I will never forget shooting an approach to minimums in actual IMC. You're tooling along, not being able to see anything, doing mathematical calculations in your head, talking to folks, and precisely controlling and configuring the airplane. It's like flying inside of a golf ball, except it's harder because if you're not careful, your body will tell you that the airplane is leaning one way or another when in fact it is not. If you get it all just so, all of a sudden you pop out of the cloud and the runway is right under the airplane. Incredible! It's like a magic trick that you do yourself that gets you from one point to another without being able to see anything, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour.
• My first real long distance cross-country - I put my license to as much good use as possible. One trip was from Virginia to central Florida. I think I did it in 5 hours or so. It would have been a two-day trip by car! I left after lunch and got there for a late supper. Plus no waiting in line for security, no delays, no checking and finding luggage. Many places would let you rent a car right at the airport and when you're done, pull the car beside the plane to load it yourself.

I could go on. I've got at least another couple dozen outstanding experiences, cherished memories. As you can probably see, I really love flying, even though I haven't been up in a few years. I like flying more than anything I've ever done in my life. When I think of the millions of years that people looked to the sky and wanted to fly, and then realize than our generation is able to actually do it! Well, it's something I think everybody should experience at least once on their own.