Blogg

Keep Calm and Go Flying!

From the day that I went solo I was promised by my Uncle Billy and Aunty Susie that despite their genuine fear of flying they would allow me to show them Stafford from a birds eye view.  The only snag to this was that I didn't realise just HOW scared they both were of flying!  A flight that would unfold into 15 minutes of utter comedy for Craig my instructor and I.

Right from the point of seeing the aircraft both their confidences went down hill, and as I took Uncle Billy with me for a walk around the aircraft to do the pre-flight checks, his confidence in the aircraft stooped to an even greater low. After the checks Billy seemed less than satisfied by the pram-like wheels of the aircraft. It was then Aunty Susie came over onto the scene and the picture her face was portraying told the story of her feelings better than a thousand words could! It wasn't exactly one of someone who was totally convinced that what she was about to do was humanly sane.  After a bit of time for a couple of 'before flight' photos  (Sorry folks the after shots didn't happen - they both legged it as fast as they could as soon as soon as their feet touched the ground) we climbed aboard and  I showed them both the drill for use in the event of an emergency (Just as well the door actually shut on the first attempt on this particular flight!)

All aboard and everyone was as happy as can be! (Well almost!) All that was left now was for Craig my instructor to arrive before I could power up and take my two unconvinced passengers for a whizz around the Staffordshire Airspace.

Whist we were waiting for Craig, some of the local airfield workers asked if I would like a push back 'Yes' I said, "I'm ready for a push back"  at which point Susie in the beck let out an uncanny squeal that sounded like "I thought you said we were waiting for a #@!!%  instructor!".  "Keep Calm!"  I exclaimed, " Nobody said anything about starting engines yet! I only asked them  to push the plane backwards as I have no 'reverse gear' and once we have Craig onboard and are ready to go, I can't go forward over the soggy grass as I'll get us bogged down and we'll start sinking into it."   Billy who was clutching to the seat for dear life was nodding affirming my statement to be true as he had already seen the capability of our pram-like wheels during our walk around.

Craig arrived and was happy the aircraft and its passengers were safe and I took the controls and headed out on our short taxxi to runway 26 whilst Craig radioed tower for our clearance to take off.  Take off clearance was given and during our takeoff run towards our 60kts rotation speed, there seemed to be an awful lot of words that my Mother told me never to use coming from the back of the plane, but as the aircraft became airborne and slightly unstable at first due to the crosswind all sounds from the back ceased!  Soon enough though I had the aircraft stabilised and climbing to our anticipated altitude of FL04 (4000ft)  heading towards Blithfield Reservoir allowing for heart rates in the back to slow back down to a more 'normal pace'.

NOW!   Had I have known at the time, JUST how SCARED Susie and Billy were in the back, I might not have done what I did over Blithfield Reservoir. Being sure to leave some of Blithfield Reservoir ahead of me so that the view within the next couple of seconds would be a good one,  I said to Billy (who was sat at the left hand side in the back) "If you look to your left, I'll show you what Blithfield Reservoir looks like form FL04 " then proceeding immediately to pull us over into a hard 45 angle degree left bank. Due to my concentration, keeping the plane on a tight and very hard turn to the left I wasn't fully aware of what was going on in the back, however Craig who up until this point was sat quite calm and comfortable must have been aware of something peculiar.  Maybe it was that Susie who was sat to the right of Billy, had now magically either changed places to the left or was sat on Billy's knee, or maybe it was the mere fact that Suzie was not only holding onto Craig's seat for dear life, but had also began to gnaw away at it too, whatever it was, I couldn't tell you, as I was enjoying my steep turn excise too much to notice, but whatever was going on back there, gave Craig a good enough reason to ask me to pull out of the turn and return to level flight.

After the events in the back of the plane during the steep turn, It became clear to me Susie and Billy were not just scared of flying, but in-fact PETRIFIED! With Rugely Powers-Station approaching us fast I made a fairly swift decision to keep this flight uneventful and as smooth as the air would let me fly and cease further practicing of procedures and manoeuvres to avoid any more flapping going on in the back of the plane.

My flight plans for the next half an hour were somewhat changed, no longer was I planning to make a steep hard turn to the right over to Rugely Power-station to show Susie what it feels like to look straight down the barrels of cooling towers, instead I would overfly the power-station whilst drawing as little attention to the fact my seat-belt come unbuckled and I was trying to fasten it as well as fly the plane. With the power-station approaching fast, I handed the issue of buckling my seatbelt over to Craig as I was aware of the hot air been churned out by coolers of the power-station and felt that I ought to now have both hands on the controls(and perhaps also my seatbelt securely buckled too) ready for the buffering that would commence caused by the hot air as we flew through it.  After we passed the power-station, I made a very slight and gradual turn to put us in the heading of Lichfield, where maybe we could find the National Memorial Arboretum and possibly bank the aircraft very slightly so that Susie could get a view of it.

Amazingly - even with the massive overdose of natural endorphins running through her veins Susie managed to capture the stunning arial photo of the National Memorial Arboretum below. We flew around the memorial once or twice before we all decided that it would be in the best interest of my fearful passengers to get them out of the plane before I did any circuit practice as in the short space of 15 minutes I had managed to reduce the pair of them to jelly. Once their feet were firmly on the ground again, off they ran towards the canteen (or maybe the toilets) never to be seen near a light aircraft ever again!  I'll also leave you with a couple of more photos taken by Susie which are a portrait of  a terrified passenger (if I ever saw one) in the back of a light aircraft.