Flying

For Christmas, as in a few months ago, one of my gifts was a trial flight, basically a learn to sly and see fi you like it, sort of things.

Finally today I did that. Sadly, not the perfect day, low cloud cover, but we sneaked in anyway. Pretty awesome.

There was I thinking an old Cessna, in fact a relatively cool little Alpha 160. Big bubble canopy and loads of vision, and as it turns out, very easy to fly.

Started with the pre-flight checks. I just nodded. Then onto the warm up. I made sure the hand brake was on. Taxi to the runway. OK, I am allowed to feel wants going on with the pedals, but don't touch the toe brake ;-)

Then onto the main runway, and we were off. Way too easy. Low cloud meant that we could go too high, theoretically our ceiling was 2500ft over the city, below the commercial space, but the cloud was at around 1500, so we had 500 to play with, as the min ceiling is 1000ft over the city. Out to the estuary, a few slow turns, and then he asked if I was all OK, and did a big steep bank. Had to say, was slightly nervous with a. the angle and b, the stall warning alarm chirping. Pretty exciting ... apparently it's a highly manoeuvrable little plane. Good.

Then my turn. Like I said, way too easy. The surprising thing was that only small movements of the stick were required. Left, right, up down, slow turns, and then my own (but not quite as steep) series of banked turns. Very cool. Back over the city to look at the demolition, then back out to Sumner, Taylors Mistake and Godley Head.

Overall, way easier to fly a plane than I imagined, but then I was just doing the easy parts. Landing, well that was the part that's clearly harder, and apparently what you practice the most.

Will I do it again. Probably actually. Have to say it didn't totally thrill me, as I think on the first time for any major activity there is a learning curve that you need to get part way up. But I feel that I owe it to myself to have a few lessons, if nothing else to know that I can take off/fly/land a plane if required.

You just never know when you might need to. Happens in the movies all the time ...

Oh, and the good news is that you can fly and photograph at the same time it seems.

And a few more grainy images, forgot to change the ISO, Duh!