Last Sunday I finally did it.
I have loved aeroplanes of all types since I was a kid. I used to collect model planes, go to my local airport to watch planes, gaze at every plane that flies overhead and stare for hours out of airliner windows. This year my mum said "You never did learn to fly did you?". That set me off thinking about life and that sort of stuff and I decided it was time I learned to fly. I mentioned this to my girlfriend who took the opportunity to buy me a trial lesson for my birthday and the first step was easy.
Saturday night had been stormy, but Sunday was bright and clear - just very, very windy. They tell you to call the school and check the lesson is going ahead. So I checked and their answer was yes, but it will be very bumpy. Would that be okay? How do I know, after all this is my first flight. So I went for it - it was clear which was a good start and when would I get another chance?
So on 3rd September 2005 my girlfriend and me went to Blackbushe Airport near Camberley for a lesson at 15:30. The flying school was Cabair. My instructor was a nice lady called Cooki - she normally flew from Denham but was working from Blackbushe that day. The plane was a Grumman AA5, registration G-KINE (Golf - Kilo India November Echo)
We did a pre-flight briefing - our destination would be sunny Swindon, along the M4. Cooki had a nice red wooden model plane which must have been there for years. She demonstrated things like pitch, yaw, ailerons, rudder, elevators and some instruments. It was a very quick summary - I was glad because I was very keen to get into the air. Keen yet very nervous. What if it was too complicated? What if I didn't like it?
We did some pre-flight checks. I was amazed by how delicate a light aircraft seems, checking the elevators I felt like I could break them with my bare hands. Cooki fuelled the plane and we were off. I sat in the left hand seat which is the pilot in command's seat. She taxied us out and we were off.
We ascended to about 2000 feet and handed me the controls - my moment had arrived! We went through rolling to the sides and ascending and descending. I was quite nervous, treating the controls very gingerly, which it seems is the right way to do it. Several little exercises later and I was feeling more confident. We were flying north of Newbury - quite close to where I work. After I mentioned that, we set out on a little expedition to find the offices from the air. Very cool and strange - my MD is a pilot and I was thinking - so this is what he sees. We went on towards Swindon where the weather began to get worse. Cloud level was getting lower and we were just beneath a ceiling of low clouds with light rain spraying on the canopy.
We turned for home - well Blackbushe. Pausing to circle Uffington White Horse and the Q offices once again we made a bee line for the airfield. Cooki pointed out lots of features as we turned towards them. London, Canary Wharf, Bracknell, Farnborough airfield and then Blackbushe in it's clearing. We descended and began to hit turbulance again, so she took over.We circled the airfield once - at one stage being eye level with a Chinook and came in to land. A great deal of side wind and what felt like sideways flying and we touched down gently on the runway.
Now I have a terrible urge to spend an enormous amount of money.
Looks like my plane has been around...
My day...
