flying

+1/2 bought me an introductory flying lesson for my birthday this year; I've always wanted to try flying but had never got around to doing anything about it. I've been trying to take the lesson for ages but something has always got in the way: work, weather, busy weekend, ...

With the voucher for the lesson about to expire I needed to take the lesson quick smart. Fortunately the weather has been pretty good the last few days and I had a couple of free hours today. Off to Scone, quick introductory chat* and into the plane. Cessna 152's are cosy. My instructor/pilot was excellent and managed to talk through all of the controls and instruments at warp speed so we could get up and avoid the heavy showers. 10 minutes later and we were in the air.

And then, I had the controls.

The encouraging thing about actually flying was, after thinking about the mechanics of flying for years it felt pretty natural. It was surprising how sensitive the controls were. I pootled around for 15 minutes, headed over towards Abernethy (but didn't quite make it due to having to skirt around some heavy showers) before the instructor took the controls again and demonstrated what the plane could actually do. 5 minutes later and we were on the ground.

Brilliant birthday present!

Now, what can I sell to get my PPL? Maybe a kidney...

* the introductory chat would have consisted of a quick introduction to the control surfaces of a plane and how they alter the orientation of the plane around the three rotational axes. After about 30 seconds:

instructor: "have you flown before?"
me: "no"
instructor: "but you know something about planes?"
me: "yes, I used to work at German Aerospace doing flow measurements around aircraft wings"
instructor: "ah; is there any point in me continuing?"
me: "nah. let's go!"