But alas, when a friend who flies offers you the chance to go up in his family’s plane, you take him up on it, especially if you have an appetite for the dangerous.
I met my buddy Matt at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, CO. We checked the conditions, as it was still up in the air if flying was a good idea (get it, up in the air!?!). The wind was number one on our watch list and it was coming in at 24 knots with gusts up to 34 knots. A knot is roughly equivalent to 1.16 miles per hour, so getting nerdy, the wind was coming in at roughly 28mph with gusts up to 40mph. It was a bit risky, but we decided to throw caution to the wind (LMAO! Get it!?!).
The cockpit of the Cessna was a bit smaller than I had expected. Matt did a few equipment checks outside while I settled into the leather co-pilot seat. I played with my headset and admired all the pretty dials and buttons, fighting the temptation to start pressing them with vigor. Matt sat down, buckled up, and opened a flight book to do a bunch of preflight checks. It was at this point that I realized I’d be a terrible pilot. I just wanted to fly, and I wanted to fly now. I could care less about the fucking fuel mixture, or testing the engine’s throttle, or even watching out for people that could be chopped to itty bits by the propeller. Boring! I just wanted to fly.
He started the engine and we were moving. He radioed the tower to notify them we’d be peacing out soon. They were down, but they had to get rid of another joker on the runway first. We taxied to a patch just before the main runway for yet another round of preflight checks. Are you fucking kidding me!? He wasn’t, and I barely held back my impatience for another few minutes. Finally, we began to move to the runway.
Take off was much more shaky than I thought it would be. As we gained altitude, I felt like I was inside a kite. When you’re flying in a commercial jet, the sheer weight of the beast allows for stability.
In a Cessna, not so much. I feared for my life exactly 279 times on that take off, but as soon as I made peace with my imminent death, I started to enjoy the rollercoaster.
We topped off at around 8,000 feet, the gusts of wind still messing with us. At any given moment a gust would lift or drop us 10 feet. It was awesome.
And the view was amazing. Micro Machine cars inching their way on black through the city. A model train chugging along. Lakes I never knew existed and snow capped mountains. Beautiful.
Sadly, our short flight was about to end, in the good way. Or so I thought, until I heard a few phrases that concerned me.
A note to any future pilots reading this blog: First of all, congrats on actually reading this blog. That makes four of us. Secondly, there are a few things you should never say to passengers while landing your plane. They are as follows:
1) “This should be interesting.” INTERESTING HOW!?! Like nightly-news, two-men-died-today interesting? Or “scientifically, this will be a fascinating landing.” Flashes of the first blinked through my mind.
2) “Plenty of runway left.” Holy shit, that means we overshot our mark. This should be interesting.
3) “Weeeeeeee” O.K., now you’re not even taking this seriously. I’m about to die, and you’re acting like a child. Dear Diary, once we land I am going to kill Matt.
If you don’t suck, you’ve deduced that we did land safely. But if you do suck: we landed safely. It wasn’t that interesting of a touch down, and the danger-seeking side of me was a tad disappointed. I was hoping for us to have to circle around once or twice, letting the wheels screech on the strip in between. But that simply didn’t happen. I realize that is a bit hypocritical considering the bullet points above, but I don’t need a lecture from you, douche pickle.
Dear Diary, I was wrong. The flight was amazing and I changed my mind about killing Matt. He’s my friend and I kinda want to go flying again. Thanks for listening, -Me
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