I had my first flying lesson!

Given that he let me take off and land myself, from the international airport main runway, on my first lesson (albeit obviously with dual controls), I see now that piloting a plane is not as regimented and controlled as I once suspected, and that the air is full of people making it up as they go along!

My first suspicion that all was not completely professional was when I met the flying instructor and he was wearing a typical pilots uniform – blue trousers and tie, white shirt, blue shoulder epaulets with gold trim – the whole deal. I know big airline pilots have a dress code, but this was a small private flying school. It honestly felt like he was in pilot-themed fancy dress.

Once we got in the plane, I assumed he’d handle the complicated parts and let me take over for a few minutes once we were safely in the air. Wrong! From the second we were seated, it was all me at the controls, following his instructions, of course.

We waited alongside the runway as a huge passenger jet thundered past, then I pulled out behind it, and followed it into the air..

He asked if I wanted a scenic flight, or to fly around the training grounds. I chose scenic, and we flew once around Magnetic Island. The views were stunning, it was pretty amazing 🙂

On our way back, as we approached the airport, we were flying parallel to the runway (again, main runway, international airport). The instructor looked concerned for a moment, and said

“Oh Shit, I’ve brought you in the wrong way, the tower told us to approach from the south”.

He squinted out through the windows,

“Ahh it’s fine, there’s no traffic around, they’re pretty cruisy in the tower here, they won’t mind”.

..

As we came in to land, he pointed out the black & white “piano keys” marked at the start of the runway, and told me that if I line up a point on the instrument panel with the piano keys, we’d be approaching at the correct angle for landing. I brought us in, but as we got closer he kept glancing between the instrument panel and the piano keys, then at me.

“Oh” he said “Oh no, you’re much taller than me! The angles are all wrong, pull up a bit.. a lot”.

Brilliant!

I loved every second of it! 🙂