First Flight

It’s been three weeks since my parents and I decided that I could do a flight lesson with Mrs. L’s nephew. I ended up telling Amy that I was going to take flight lessons, and she was surprisingly very supportive. She actually thinks it would be a good fit for me. My relationship with Mrs. L has forever changed. She saw something in me that nobody else did, and I’ll never be able to thank her enough for it. I really hope that I do well with these flight lessons so I can make everyone proud. 

We wake up to a crisp October morning. I look out my bedroom window to see that the sun us just above horizon and the air looks really calm. What a perfect day for a first flight. I have butterflies in my stomach like you wouldn’t believe. As if I, Blair Evans, will be able to say that I have flown a plane by the end of the day. I’ve never even been in a plane before! I quickly get dressed and head downstairs to see if Mom and Dad are ready.

“Blair, we thought you’d never wake up! Are you excited?” Asks Mom

“I’m so excited. But really nervous too!” I respond.

“You’ll love it Blair. And it looks like a great day for it.” Says Dad.

“I know! Do you think I’ll actually get to fly the plane myself?” I ask.

“I’m not sure sweetie. It’s just a familiarization flight, so maybe.” Dad responds. 

“Oh I hope so! I can’t wait. Are you guys ready?” I ask.

“Just let me grab the camera, then we can go.” Says Mom.

The 20 minute drive to the Hudson Airport is the longest 20 minutes of my life. I don’t even have words to explain how excited I am. As we get closer, I start to see planes taking off and landing. As if that will be me shortly. As we make the final turn I get a glimpse of the plane I’ll be flying. Wow that’s small. It looked small in pictures, but wow. That’s really small. My heart is racing, my palms are sweating, and I think I’m even shaking a little. I begin to wonder if I really can do this. What if we get up there and I don’t like it? What if I get airsick? Or what if I just suck at flying? I have to put these thoughts aside though. I’m here to have fun, and I need to remember that. 

Mom puts the car in park and my heart stops. Oh no, it’s actually happening. I feel so many emotions right now. Excited, nervous, anxious, hopeful, uncertain… and that’s just to name a few! Here goes nothing I guess. 

“Are you ready, Blair?” Asks Dad. Surely he can see how nervous I look.

“I think so…” I say quietly. 

“A little smaller than you expected, eh?” he says.

“Yeah, you could say that.” 

We walk into the small terminal, and it’s like I’m seeing a younger male version of Mrs. L. It’s incredible how alike they look. If he was older I’d say they were siblings. 

“Hey, you must be Blair?” Says Calvin.

“Yeah. Nice to meet you.” I say as we shake hands.

“You too. Are you excited?” He asks.

“Very. And pretty nervous too.” I say.

“Everyone is at first, don’t worry about it. We’ll take it nice and slow, okay?”

“Sounds good.” I respond. That makes me feel better. 

“You guys must be Blair’s parents. We’re going to go into the classroom, but you’re welcome to join us.” Says Calvin. 

“No, that’s okay. I think we’ll grab a coffee and enjoy the view.” Responds Dad.

Calvin and I walk into the classroom. It has a small chalk board, a few model planes, 4 desks put together with chairs around them. I sit down and pull out a notebook and pen. I need to look like I’m prepared. 

“Alright, so, the first thing we’re going to talk about is something you’ll need to do every flight, okay Blair?” Says Calvin

“Okay.” I respond.

“It’s called a walk around. And you can guess what that means. Basically we’ll just do a thorough visual inspection of the plane. We’ll also check the oil, and fuel. Does this make sense?”

“Yeah, I think so.” I respond.

Calvin explains all of the details of the walk around. It sounds easy enough. I just hope I don’t miss anything because that could be dangerous. He says he will do it with me for the first few lessons, which reassures me. Once he’s done talking about the walk around, he tells me that another thing we have to do every flight is check weather. He said he did it today, and we’ll work on that more another day. 

“Once we’re satisfied with the walk around and weather conditions, we can go flying.” says Calvin. “I’ve already done the walk around, but we’ll do it again before we go so you can see what it looks like.”

“Sounds good.” I say.

“Did my aunt tell you what was involved with this flight?” He asks.

“No, she didn’t really say anything.”

“Okay, no problem. What’ll happen is I’ll do all of the initial checks on the ground, and have you follow along. I’ll do the takeoff, climb us up to altitude, and then, if you’re ready, you can take control.”

“Really? Like I can fly?” I say eagerly.

“Of course! I won’t teach you much up there. Really it’s just getting you used to the feel of flying, and of course, the feel of the controls. If we do much more it can sometimes be overwhelming. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great. I’m so excited.”

“Good. Let’s head to the plane!”

Wow, we’re actually doing this. I walk behind Calvin towards the plane. It’s even smaller in person! He shows me how to do the walk around, and it really isn’t that hard. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with it. I wave to my parents who are watching from the terminal window. It’s time to get in the plane now. I go to get in the passenger side when I hear Calvin.

“Hold it there, Blair. You want to be a pilot, right? That means you need to sit in the pilot’s seat!”

“Really? Wow, okay.” 

I walk around to the other side of the plane and I struggle to get in. Apparently this gets easier with time. Calvin shows me how to do up my seatbelt, and where to plug my headset in. Within minutes the plane is running. I can hear people talking on the radio, but I have no idea what they’re talking about. Calvin assures me that it’ll make sense in a few flights, and for now, just to focus on flying. He keeps going with his checks. I’m trying to follow along, but I’m pretty lost to be honest. He makes a radio call, and we start moving towards the runway. 

“Are you ready, Blair?” Clavin asks.

“I think so.” I respond.

“Okay. So, I’m just going to add full power, and in a few seconds, I’ll pull back slightly on the control column, and then we’ll be airborne. Should be fairly smooth, okay?”

“Okay. Let’s do it!

And then he does just that. He sets full power, and we’re racing down the runway. This is incredible.  I can’t believe how fast we’re going! I wonder if Mom and Dad are still watching. They must be so nervous! Seconds later we’re airborne! Just like that! There are no words to explain this feeling. I feel so free, but that’s certainly not all I feel. The trees are slowly getting smaller below us, and as we climb I start to see so much. The view is incredible. I’m not even paying attention to Calvin right now, I’m just looking out the window in absolute amazement.

“Hey Blair, I’m going to turn us left okay? It’s going to feel a little weird, but it wont be for long.” Says Calvin. 

“Okay.” I say.

He was right, it did feel weird, but it wasn’t scary by any means. As we climb, Calvin makes a couple of radio calls. He says he’s just letting people know where we are. He shows me the different instruments in the plane, and explains what they all do. We’re going to climb to 5,000 feet today! I try to read this thing called the altimeter- that’s what tells us our altitude- but I’m not very good at it. When we get to 5,000 feet, he pulls back the power a bit so we aren’t going so fast. I can see so much more out the front now! I still can’t believe I’m doing this. 

“Do you want to take control now, Blair?” Asks Calvin.

“Yeah, sure.” I say excitedly.

“Okay, when I say, ‘you have control’ I need you to respond by saying ‘I have control’ that way there’s never any question as to who is flying the plane.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Blair, you have control.”

“I have control,” I say excitedly.  

Wow, I’m flying. This is so cool. I think I’m doing okay. Calvin hasn’t said anything, and I’m sure he would take control if I was doing something wrong. I hold the control column as still as I can. I think this is what I’m supposed to do.

“Good job, Blair. You’re doing a very good job at keeping us straight. From now on, we’re going to refer to this as cruise, okay?”

“Okay, but I don’t really understand why…”

“Well, that way if we are in a turn, and want to stop turning, we can just go back what you’re seeing outside right now. If you do that, you’ll know you’re holding altitude, and you’re going straight. Notice how the altimeter still reads 5,000 feet?”

“Wow, yeah. I wasn’t even looking at that.”

“Good! I don’t want you to! Just keep your eyes outside. Now, why don’t we try turning. Just move the control column slightly to the right, and watch what happens.”

As I do this, the plane starts moving right. Calvin starts telling me what the proper terminology for this is, but I’m to excited to even listen. 

“Nice work, you’re a natural. Now, I want you to go back to cruise.” Says Calvin.

I turn left to stop the turn and try to go back to cruise. I think I’m doing it. Everything outside looks like it did before I started the turn.

“Is this it?” I ask.

“It is. Nice work!” He says. 

“Why don’t we try turning to the left now. You’ll notice it’ll look different than it did when you turned right.”

“Okay, sounds good!” I say eagerly.

I start the left hand turn, and realize immediately that I prefer to turn right. When you turn left, all you see is ground when you look out the side window. It’s going to take a while to get used to this.

“Perfect. We can go back to cruise now.” Says Calvin.

“Alright, here’s cruise.” I say confidently.

“You’ve got it! Alright, time to show you one more thing. I have control, okay?” 

“Okay, you have control.” 

“Notice how your feet are flat on the floor right now?” He says.

“Yeah…” I’m a little unsure of where this is going

“If you stretch your legs out, you’ll be able to feel 2 pedals. These are called rudder pedals, can you feel them?” He asks.

“Yeah, I can.” 

“Good, now look what happens when I press the left pedal. Notice how the nose turns left, but we’re not angled at all?”

“Yeah. Can I press the right pedal?”

“Sure,” he responds, and I push on the right rudder pedal. “Perfect. Every time we turn, we need to use the rudder pedals to help us. We’ll work on that more another flight. I just wanted you to see how they worked. 

“Okay, sounds good. That was fun.”

We’ve already been up for 40 minutes. Time is going by so quickly. Calvin starts a descent towards the airport. I’m pretty nervous for the landing. The take-off was nothing, but surely descending towards the ground is going to feel a little uncomfortable. I stay quiet so Calvin can talk on the radio. I still can’t believe I’m flying right now. As we descend the trees are starting to get bigger, and I can make out people on the ground. The runway is right in front of us, but we’re still pretty high I think. I’m trying to stay calm, but I’m really nervous about this. Dad said the scariest part of flying was the landing. I wish he hadn’t told me that.

“We’ll be landing in a few seconds. Once we get over the runway I’m going to cut the power, so don’t be alarmed when that happens. The winds are in our favour, so the landing will be smooth. Do you have any questions?” Asks Calvin.

“Um, no, I don’t think so.” I respond.

Twenty seconds later we touch down and we’re racing down the runway again. That wasn’t so bad after all. Calvin presses the brakes to slow us down and brings us back to where we started our flight. Mom and Dad are waiting with huge smiles on their faces. We get out, and I’m shaking a little I’m so excited. I can’t believe that just happened. 

“Blair, how how was it?” Asks Mom excitedly.

“Mom it was so awesome!!” I respond.

“I’m so glad you had fun!” She says. “Now get in front of the plane, we need to get a picture.”

“Ah Mom, you’re so embarrassing!”

I do as she says, and we snap a few pictures. Calvin poses for a picture with me, and then he takes a picture of me with Mom and Dad. Once we do that, we head back into the terminal where everyone starts clapping! Mom and Dad must have told them it was my first flight. They can be so embarrassing sometimes!! Everyone congratulates me on my first flight, and I must say, I feel pretty incredible right now.  We head back to the classroom, and this time Mom and Dad follow.

“Well, how did she do?” Asks Dad.

“Really well actually. We covered a lot more in the flight than I expected to.” He responds.

“That’s great news!” Says Dad.

Calvin goes into his office for a minute and when he comes out, he has a small black book in his hands. 

“Blair, this is going to be your logbook.”

“What’s that?” I ask. 

“Every flight you do, you’ll record how long you were in the air, and what you worked on. Every pilot has one, and since you’re a pilot now, you have one too.”

“Wow, that’s awesome. Thank you.”

Calvin shows me how to fill out my new logbook, and then we talk a little bit about what we’re going to do on our next flight. He says we can do it next weekend, and Mom and Dad agree to it. He gives me three textbooks, and a few pages to read before the next flight. I’ve never felt so motivated to read before. I still can’t believe I’m really doing this. 

I can’t stop smiling on our drive home. I knew I was going to have fun today, but I didn’t realize just how much fun I was going to have. The feeling of racing down the runway, and then seconds later being airborne is indescribable. You feel so free. Like you can do anything! 

Once again I feel so thankful for Mrs. L. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for her. I’m so excited to see where this adventure takes me.

Author's Note

Please let me know if any of the aviation terms aren't described well enough. I'm trying to keep it as basic as I can.

Reviews

[denise]

I am really enjoying this so far! The teenage voice is well written. I just feel like there's a part of the story missing. I feel like it jumped from Blair taking the test to flying the plane too quickly. I think you can add to this by putting some more details in between. Other than that I think it's a unique story and would be a wonderful book for teens today~ and I am a mom to three! :) Looking forward to reading more! I'm not going to give any grammar advice. Honestly, I find it frustrating when so many reviews focus on that. Personally, on a site like WC, I am only seeking honest opinions of my writing and ideas. We all know we need to edit and correct any mistakes before submitting it!

[Shauna]

Thank you, I really appreciate the review! I've actually been stuck, and your advice of adding something in between the results and the flight might be just what I needed to hear.

[denise]

You're welcome! It's a breath of fresh air to read something that deals with teens and isn't just about the usual topics! Keep going with this!!!