A (not -so) Wise Choice: They Let me Fly a Plane Edition

My dad has been wanting to get his pilot's license for a while now and decided to get me on board with the quest for myself.  So yesterday while he was in town, we went for a "discovery flight" out at Hooks airport.  Its meant to be a mini intro into the pilot training program. 

First we started in a classroom where our Pilot, Robert, talked to us about flight maps (or whatever the real name is) and all the other crazy acronyms and french words the aviation industry deems necessary.  It hurt my head.  You have to be really smart to be a pilot.  I don't know if my people are made for this.

We'll see.

So after the classroom - map - times, we ventured to the flight simulator.  It was awesome.  It looks just like a cockpit- but with a computer screen instead of... er... the earth.  My dad went first. It starts you on the runway for take off.... he was in the grass before he even left the ground.  Ha. Then you fly around and practice turns and leveling out.  It was amazing.  I was up next, I did slightly better than my dad, but only because I had watched him and paid extra attention to not do what he did. It worked, kind of.  After the simulator times we were off to the real thing ! 

We did a pre-flight inspection of the plane...checking everything.  It was all there. Whew.

I was in the hot seat first and dad observed.  We took off and I was slightly freaking out.  There is so much to pay attention to.  My tiny little blonde brain was blown.  Once we were up in the air, I took the controls. 

HA.

They'll let just anyone fly one of those things.  Suckers.

So I had to level the plane, then go up...then down....then once we were over Lake Conroe he decided I should do some turns.  Naturally.  Turns in a plane are....freaky.  You lose lift when you turn so unless you correct it you naturally start going down slightly, so as I was turning us right it actually looked like we were heading straight for the lake... or what's left of it at the moment (anger fist to the drought) .  So as I'm freaking out and saying my final prayers in me head the pilot man tells me its a beautiful turn.  Irony. 

After 30 minutes we landed and I switched places with dad.  We were both a little air sick, but shook it off so dad could have his moment to shine. 

and shine he did!

Ok, so i might have slept a little in the back....BUT we didn't crash so I take that as shining! GO DAD !

He did the same thing as me and then we returned.

mission accomplished.

Roger.

And that was that. Typical day .