Getting Wings

This is a little late on but last week I had my very first ever flying lesson and I wanted to write about it because it was such an amazing experience. Now I have always had such a strange obsession with flying, the idea of floating through the sky in a man made object being able to look down on the world and admire it at a greater scale that my mere mortal feet. I have always had a pull to take up flying lessons but never really had the opportunity. When I was younger I had a neighbour who used to be an RAF pilot and had a series of WWII flying simulator games on his PC and a range of normal flight simulator games and every now and then he would invite me in and he would show me how to use them and then let me play them for hours which only served to expand my love and obsession with flying (also it hit my passion for WWII history and playing computer games so it was a win all around really).

The first time I ever flew was on a small passenger plane going out to Germany to stay with my uncle for a bit of a holiday. I remember feeling really excited about it and my mum gave me the window seat which was lovely of her. I spent the entire hour long flight staring out of the window marveling at the fact that I was being propelled through the air simply by a couple of engines and a metal tube with wings. Now considering I am quite scared of heights, not super petrified but just enough fear for me to be worried when standing at the top of something quite high. I would describe it as a relatively ration fear (I would say that though wouldn't I?) but when I was flying it didn't phase me at all. I couldn't be higher up above the ground unless I was an astronaut but it just didn't affect me, other that excite me obviously.

So when it came around to my 21st birthday last year in October my very loving and wonderful girlfriend thought she would really surprise me and she bought me a flying lesson! Now I understand that there is a long time difference between when I said I had the lesson and when it was given to me. But the present was more like an 'I Owe You' because we are at uni and we needed to do it when we were both free to do so. So we booked it a while ago and the weather was an issue the first time I was going to do it so we decided to reschedule so that I could actually see things from the plane, kinda makes it more worth it. So we managed to get it rescheduled for the Easter holidays.

So when we get to the place we discover that the flying club that the lesson is booked with is on an RAF base and we have to go through some minor security checks. It isn't a fully functional RAF so no top secret projects or expensive aircraft or anything like that. But we drove through down to the club and I got my first sight of the selection of aircraft that I would be flying one of that afternoon. I was so excited that my heart was thumping away. I met the instructor who asked what kind of a lesson I wanted seeing as it was a half an hour lesson and was my very first time, so we agreed that I could just have a bit of fun with it all really. We jumped in the plane, did the checks, got permission from the control tower to take off and up we went. 50 feet above the ground and "controls are yours". Now this didn't scare me because he had already told me he was going to do this but it was such a strange feeling. Pulling back on the controls to get some altitude and up we went. For pretty much the entire lesson I had control of the plane apart from take off and landing which are obviously the bits that can go most wrong and I don't think either of us were in the mood for my completely amateur attempts at that. However having complete control of the aircraft while up in the sky was such a surreal and fantastic experience. Up in a small Cessna 152, which is a very small two seater aircraft propeller plane basically for those who don't know, and it just felt so free. And one of the most surreal moments was any turn to the left because I was sat in the left hand seat but this meant that when we turned I was looking straight down at the ground through a very normal window and a quite thin door wearing a very basic seat belt. At first this was such a strange feeling but it didn't scare me. It was such a beautiful experience, flying out over villages and looking down at the hold world with a 360 degree view from the cockpit. I even got the chance to feel 2G which I can tell you is a weird experience, feeling your whole body pushed down by double gravity! Especially your eyes being pushed down, that was the strangest part of that. It isn't as bad as it sounds though.

But yeah, that is my first experience of flying a plane myself. My instructor told me that I was a natural and I am quite proud indeed of that fact. I don't know if he was just saying that because it was my first time but he gave me lots of encouragement and said it a few times so I'm going to take it as the truth. I would recommend flying to absolutely everyone! It is a little expensive but then what isn't these days. Even if you just do it once it is so worth it for the experience!