First time at the pointy end

"Nervous?" my other half asked me as I went to bed the night before my first flight.

I wasn't. But then again, I didn't sleep either. Like a child on Christmas Eve, I kept wanting it to be the following day. Deciding that I may as well be up and about anyway, I plodded downstairs and made myself a coffee, before opening up my laptop and looking at the airport weather report. No wind. No rain. 300m visibility.

My heart sank. 300m isn't an awful lot. It didn't look like I was going.

I had time, though. Doggedly refreshing the page, the visibility improved drastically after a few hours. We were back on. My early morning 300m had turned into a glorious >10km, so we stood a chance of getting airborne without bumping into things hidden in the murk.

I headed off to the airport, allowing extra time for getting lost as I wasn't going to the main terminal for a change. Once there, I met my instructor. A genial chap with a big pair of aviator sunglasses, and a bigger smile. "Where are you from? Oh, that's not far. We can fly down there if you want?". I declined, telling him that I saw enough of the place from ground level, and that I didn't think it would look much better with the addition of a few thousand feet. We decided that flying out to the coast would be a nice alternative.

As we headed out to the aircraft, nothing had quite prepared me for the size of it. I thought I'd been on a small plane before having flown in an Embraer 145, but with its two seats and a single step to help you into the cabin, the little Cessna was a completely new level of small. A quick introduction to the various bits and pieces in front of me, and we were off. The tower gave permission to enter the runway, with the caveat that there was a 737 due to land very shortly; we pulled out of the taxiway where we'd held, the instructor doing what I presume to be the aircraft equivalent of a handbrake turn to face the right way down the runway, and headed off. The experience was almost surreal; in an airliner, you're very aware of being pushed back in your seat, and the aircraft taking its time to leave the ground. Our little Cessna was rather gentle in the way it left the blocks, but it still only took only a few hundred metres before we were airborne.

And so, we were in the air. The sheep in the field at the end of the runway turning into little white dots below us, and the view across the landscape opening up further and further. When you're on a commercial airliner, you don't get to see this part, at least not in the same way; whereas a passenger looking out from the side of a plane might get a fleeting moment where they can admire the view before the pilot banks the aircraft into a turn, limiting them to either a view of the ground or the sky, I got to see everything unfold before me in a way I hadn't before. My instructor took us away from the airport, with its bigger planes that would have no doubt not played well with our little Cessna and signalled that it was my turn.

"Don't worry about the pedals", he told me. I just had the yoke in my hand. I'd been told to be gentle with it and so for the sake of not denting my own pride by having the instructor rescue me from my own mistakes in the first minute, I tried it out ever so softly. Turn it left... we go left. Right... we go right. Push it forward, houses get bigger. Back, and they get smaller. Easy! 32 hours of flight time needed for the NPPL licence, and I'd just mastered it in about 30 seconds.

OK, to say that I'd mastered it might be over-egging somewhat, but I'm allowed these little victories. The fact remains that I had some degree of control over an aircraft, even if my instructor was taking care of things that I had no real idea about at that stage. And so we flew around for a bit, going up the coast with the instructor pointing out landmarks, all of which I was at least vaguely familiar with, but none of which I'd ever seen from that viewpoint before.

We'd talked about various things on the way, and I'd managed to take at least some of them in, including the bit about turbulence. As luck would have it, it was quite a calm day, but on the way back to the airport we hit a bit of an updraft. I was trying to turn right at the time, but the air coming up underneath us had different ideas, and we went off left. After getting used to feeling in control for the last 20 minutes or so, to suddenly find the aircraft doing its own thing was a bit unnerving. We were soon out of it though, but it was remarkable to see just how different things feel in a smaller aircraft.

Before long, the airport was in sight again, with the runway more or less at right angles to us. I knew that soon enough, my little stint at the controls would be over.

We carried on flying towards the airport, still at right angles to the runway. I made the turn to line up whilst the instructor made radio calls. We got closer, the instructor helping me stay lined up. He pointed out what I was later to learn was the PAPI, a set of four lights telling me how low or high I was coming in to the runway. As we got closer and closer, the runway filled my field of vision in a way I'd not experienced before. I'd been used to seeing it approach from the corner of my window in the passenger cabin, but to suddenly be all large and grey in front of me was a bit different. I'll hold my hands up and say that for the first time in my life, I was a little bit scared about the whole being in an aircraft business.

As we got closer, I saw my instructor's hands hovering near the yoke. I reassured myself that he'd be taking control back at any second. We were now actually over the runway. "It's no different to flying at 2000 feet, really!" he quipped, whilst still not taking over from me. Eventually he did take over, and took us down the last ten feet or whatever was remaining. As we taxied back to the stand, I mentioned that I thought he'd take over a lot sooner. "You seemed to be doing alright, so I left you to it!" came his reply.

So there we were. Sitting on the apron, my body was at ground level although my heart was still in my mouth from the landing, and my head was a few thousand feet up.

It was incredible in a way that nothing else I've experienced was. I was lucky enough to try a balloon flight earlier in the year which was truly breathtaking. Sitting in a light aircraft doesn't have quite the same eerie quietness as ballooning, but on the other hand being able to point the aircraft in a certain direction, and not ending the flight being dragged headfirst through a field full of cowpats are definite pluses!

Me and flying - how I got to this point

I think I was about 14 when I first flew. Balkan Airways, from Birmingham to somewhere in Bulgaria. It was a Tupelov, but apart from that I don't really recall much about it. I guess my interest in flying didn't start until much later.

I think it's largely my partner's fault. She's absolutely terrified of flying, and has nearly crushed the bones in my hand whilst we've been sitting on commercial flights. The moment anything on the aircraft makes a noise, or something feels different, she goes into full-on "Ohmygodwe'regoingtodiewe'regoingtodie" mode. I started doing a bit of armchair study before we took a flight together, so that I could say to her "That noise is the gear extending", or "That one was the flaps - this is what flaps do", or even "That noise means that another passenger wants a drink"; she's still terrified, but at least she's a bit better when she knows that whatever just happened is perfectly normal.

I didn't confine my armchair reading to pre-flight, though. When we went away, I'd find myself making mental notes of things that I'd seen or heard, and looking them up when I got home. When I did this, I'd find new words, phrases or concepts that I didn't understand, and I'd have to look them up as well. I soon found myself with every tab open in my browser on some sort of aviation reference, Wikipedia page, or just looking at aircraft porn. It was at this point that my other half suggested that maybe I should get help.

I fully expected this 'help' to take the form of a nice man who'd lie me down on a couch and talk to me about my obsession. With fees starting from £40 a session, psychotherapy may have been quite a cheap way to deal with it. Instead, she suggested I took lessons. I think she occasionally suggests things like this as a bargaining chip: "Yes, I know I spent £100 on a new handbag, but how much do you spend on flying?" is a conversation I can see us having in the not too distant future.

So, that's where I stand now. I've done a trial lesson (which I'll write about next), and I fear that I'm hooked. The armchair study has been taken to new levels. I can't wait until the next time I'm in the air.