Flying High

This is nearly a month late, but I've been swamped with school and work. For my birthday this year, Hailey outdid herself on my birthday present. Something I've been wanting to do for a while now is learn to fly. I've become fascinated with getting my pilots license after seeing Tim McGraw and Dierks Bentley flying their own planes. Granted, I'm not a multi-millionaire who can afford buying his own plane (yet), but I do know that getting my license is within my reach, and I can just rent a plane for the time being before actually buying one someday.

Anyway, back on topic.

The day of my birthday we ditched our only class on Friday, and headed south. Went to Six Flags for a few hours, and then headed south. I had no idea what was going on outside of Six Flags, so all of this was a complete surprise to me. We grabbed lunch and killed time somewhere in LA before I found out about the surprise, and once it was time for my appointment she had scheduled, Hailey was able to surprise me with going to Van Nuys Airport, and going to a full-blown flight simulator for 45 minutes to see just how good I could possibly be at flying. I had no idea until we got there, and all day she had a word puzzle that I was trying to figure out. It turns out that the puzzle spelled out Frank Sinatra's 'Come Fly With Me'. Fitting, right?

So we show up to this hangar, and we meet the instructors of U.S Aviators Flight School, and I think we're just doing the simulator. That alone would have been more than enough for me. I was stoked to learn more about all of this!

I sit down, and this system is the real deal. Pedals, throttle, the whole nine is in front of me and three screens wrapped around me. The instructor goes over all of the basics, and teaches me about the angle of attack, how propellers work cutting through the air, etc. Once we go through the simulator, apparently I impressed him, because even landing the plane I did well. He told me that no one else has done it so smoothly, so I guess I'm a natural!

Once we wrapped with that, he suggested we go out and check out some actual planes and see the difference between the simulator and the real deal, so we roll out to the tarmac, and pull up to a plane, and I'm climbing all over this single engine Piper, completely geeked out about it. Then, Hailey leans in close to me as I'm sitting in the cockpit, and she says, "now you get to really fly".

Jaw Dropped. Heart Stopped.

Me. I get to fly. For real. Like, really start the plane, taxi it, take it off, and fly for an hour. Me.

I was over the moon! This was insane. I couldn't believe that I was getting to fly for real, and only after 45 minutes of ground school. People either must be a bit nutty, or really trust me to do this...

Well, Hailey and the instructor climbed in, and we started the plane up, and I took off, leveled us out at around 4500 feet and we headed over to Camarillo to fly by their landing strip so I got an idea of how descents to land worked, pulled the plane back up to 4500 feet, and headed back. Maybe a 1/2 mile out, the instructor took over to land, but up until that point, it was all me. Which again, he told me that I picked it up really quick, and wasn't over correcting myself a lot, which people apparently tend to do.

The best part was when we landed. I found out that once I get my log book, I'm able to log the first hour and 45 minutes of ground school and flight time in my book. So now, I've got time under my belt as a pilot! I know it's not much, but it's something I get to work towards now!

This present was by far one of the best gifts I've ever gotten, and I can't thank my wife for putting it together, and my in-laws for pitching in on some of the cost. Now I just can't wait to get back to flying again. 

 Below is some footage Hailey shot as well from flying.