“Miracles start to happen when you give as much energy to your dreams as you do to your fears.” -Richard Wilkins
This afternoon I had a flying lesson in the gusty winds. Taking off there were strong tailwinds. I have to stop and say something here. Roger knows his plane like the back of his hand and what it is capable of doing. When you couple that with Roger being an extraordinary pilot and an amazing instructor, then what seems to be magic happens. I would have refused to go flying this afternoon with anyone but him. But, I’m still excited that I did.
It was like rock and roll time!
He explained each step of taking off with strong tailwinds. I’ve learned to do exactly what he tells me to do. I can ask as many questions as I like afterwards. When we touched off, I felt my whole body going, “Ahhhhhh” with relief.
Then he told me to go to 4500. At that point, I knew I was about to face my fear: learning stalls. It happens when the critical angle of attack is exceeded. You continue to pull the nose up, full flaps, strong right rudder, until the plane stalls. At that point, you feel the plane drop at an excessive sink rate and he taught me how to recover from it. (Take a look at the low airspeed in the picture below). By the way, he was as cool as a cucumber! So why did he have me do it? Just in case you get into a stall by accident one day, you know automatically what to do (with practice, practice, practice). I’ve read about accidents occurring when pilots accidentally stall planes during takeoffs and landings.
I thought doing stalls would feel like a roller coaster at Cedar Point (Ohio), but it was more like see-sawing between total peril and complete happiness, strange as that may sound. But after we did some, Roger said he would show me something that would be relaxing. Take a look at the waterfall. It was beautiful. Just there in the middle of the mountains.
I LOVE flying. After I got over my initial fear, I thought I would fly until I had to do stalls. But, every time I face my fears in the air, life seems to get easier when I’m on the ground.
