Flying High
Working as a hospital administrator day to day is not the sort of thing that gets my blood pumping stronger than usual. So after getting a taste for flight riding shotgun in a short trip across Cook straight earlier this year, I was longing to try out the real deal in the pilot’s seat. And thanks to a thoughtful gift at this years coming of age, the opportunity arose on Sunday afternoon. “All you need to know is pitch, roll and yaw” assured Melanie, the co-pilot for my first ever flight in a real airplane at the Wellington Aero Club. “Keep them in mind and the rest’ll come easy”… Right. So what about take-off and landing? Radio comms? The ejection button? God help me should I have to actually take control of an emergency situation. A ten minute pre-flight briefing about aerodynamics and the rules of engagement was all I needed to land a seat in the cozy cockpit of a Piper Tomahawk, built, as I later learned, for stall and spin training for ordinary students. Good to know.
A crackling confirmation from tower control gave the all clear for take off and vast blue skies made for an easy departure from Wellington airstrip and up over the Eastbourne peninsular. With my hands on the steering unit ‘shadowing’ the movements of Melanie’s easy guidance, she handed over control and instructed me on a few aeronautical maneuvours. ‘Yawing’ is to turn the wings to one side or the other in order to glide horizontally across the course of movement, and I was just about to get my first taste of a mighty yaw. Adjusting the left and right foot pedals that alter the plane’s orientation at 15,000 feet might seem a daunting experience, but the associated surge of exhilaration is something to yearn for, as the nose dipps and dives to a lower flight path. This creates the ‘wooshing’ sound that follows most film sequences where the plane slides gracefully across the screen.
It was somewhere over the Petone esplanade that I crucially remembered the digital camera sitting idly in my pocket, and shimmied it out to grab some stunning snapshots of Wellington harbour, Somes Island, and a random persons red-roofed house near the motorway. Soon enough we turned the nose round and within a few short minutes of descent we were preparing to land at the wide open strip of Wellington airport. Thinking this would make for some magic footage, I flicked the camera to ‘film’ mode to record my triumphant return to solid ground. Alas, Melanie made sure I felt the full brunt of our landing and instructed me to put both hands on the steering once more as we bopped and bounced our way back on to the tarmac. I breathed a secret sigh of relief as we came to a stop in the parking area and the propeller whirled to a stop.
As we logged in the flight details and radioed in the successful landing, I quizzed my instructor on a few more of the dashboard gadgets that differed slightly from my girlfriends Mazda 323 that I often chugged around town. Sure it includes an altimeter rather than an alternator, and a thrust-stick rather than a gear-stick, but I was certain that a few more flights would have me reeling off their names and readings at the drop of a hat. I stepped out of the box-seat to pose for a photo alongside our trusty craft, and so ended my first ever sky-high adventure. I enquired about the terms for doing solo flights and was told that a dozen more lessons and a few thousand dollars would leave me ‘Yawing’ off into the sunset to all my hearts content. If only hospital administration paid a little better…
link