At one point I wanted to pursue a commercial pilot's license in lieu of a college education. My parent's backed this endeavor, I went to the local airport with a pilot school, they had a $20 "You gonna vomit in a Cessna?" flight (They didn't call it that, but I could read between the lines.)
I signed up. I figured they'd take off, wiggle the wings, and land, I mean it was only $20!
Nope... I did the full pre-flight with the "real" pilot, we got in the cockpit. He asked me if I had any flight experience...
"Well, no, but I've been playing flight simulators since I was 12".
"Good enough! Here's the throttle, go to (Whatever) speed, then rotatee!"
Then proceeded to visibly and demonstrably cross his arms....
"Oh cool! "
So I got to the runway, throttled up, got to rotation speed, rotated, climbed out, turned when he said to turn, etc... Had a BLAST! Got to buzz my parent's house, etc, flew around for nearly an hour. He wanted me to stall it and recover, I requested we save that for a later lesson.
...he wanted me to land it too.... I requested we save THAT for a later lesson too.... although in hindsight I'm fairly confident I could have safely, if not smoothly, gotten us back on the ground.....
LOVED it....
(Long story, short version - at the time I had a paralyzing fear of needles. Was told I'd need a blood sample for the FAA physical, dropped the whole endeavor right then and there.
)
Anyway.... Beyond all that, ya' know we're all thinking this too:
