First Flight

In May 1998, our eldest son had just finished his first year of college and I decided to buy flowers to celebrate his homecoming. While checking out with a simple but cheery bouquet that said “Congratulations!” a giant jar sitting on the counter caught my eye. Taped on the glass was a note in large letters “RAFFLE! Support your local charity.” Donating to a good cause with the added possibility of winning a prize is an easy sell for me despite my never having won anything. I quickly filled out a slip of paper, put it in the jar, paid for my flowers and left with excited anticipation of seeing my son.

A few weeks later, the flowers having been enjoyed and now in the compost, I received a letter from the florist. I had won the raffle! Included in the letter was a gift certificate for a plant of my choice. What a fun surprise. I began looking forward to choosing a nice hanging fuchsia for the porch.

Although amused and pleased to have won, the notion of winning a plant from a florist seemed an obvious prize.  Not unlike winning free tickets to a movie from a theater. Perhaps it was because the gift was so obvious, I didn’t readily notice and almost threw away another piece of paper saying that I had won a free airplane flight at the Middlebury Airport. Now this was a surprise. Why would a florist include a free flight in their raffle? Flowers, yes, but a plane ride? This raised yet another important question: “Middlebury has an airport?”

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Free flowers and a scenic flight were not to be denied. In short order I found the phone number for the airport in the local phone book. Yes, people still used phone books and landlines in 1998. I admit that when I called the number, due to a fear of flying and occasional issues with motion sickness, I was a bit anxious. However, it was curiosity and “free” that won the day. 

After a few rings, a man with a booming voice and an unusual southern twang answered: “Howdy! Middlebury Airport. This is Charlie Foxtrot.”  I explained about the raffle and plane ride gift certificate. The airport manager/flight instructor enthusiastically said “Great!  Have you ever flown in a small plane before?” I nervously admitted that “No, I had only flown a few times commercially.” I explained that my husband Rich and I had thought about learning to fly when we were in our 30’s but attended graduate school instead. Again, his response was: “GREAT! We’ll make this an introductory flight lesson!” He was increasingly sounding like Tony the Tiger talking about Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. 

Once he gave me directions, I agreed to meet him at the airport the following weekend. After hanging up, I was a mix of excitement and fear. Those handful of commercial flights I had taken included a self created ritual to magically prevent the planes from crashing. When we began to take off, I would close my eyes, put my hands on my lap and silently say: ”Please God please, don’t let me die in this plane.” This request to whatever deity was listening was repeated as the plane initiated its final approach to land. I was terrified with every little take-off and landing sound, bump, and vibration. Only when we either got to our maximum altitude or the wheels were on the ground was I able to breathe easily. Once the aircraft leveled off at 30,000 feet or so, I would relax a bit, because I knew that if anything untoward happened, I was going to die and nothing would save me. This is how I felt in a large commercial plane. How was I going to feel in a plane with only one propeller? I didn’t think I would be calm and relaxed, but “free” and “curiosity” are great motivators.

We met at the airport mid-morning. It was what our weatherman calls a bluebird day. The sky was cloudless, the wind calm and the temperature crispy cool. Looking back, it was a perfect day to fly. A tall mustached man over 6 feet, in jeans and a blue short-sleeve buttoned shirt with 6B0 embroidered on his pocket came up to my car. “Howdy, I’m Charlie,” he said. I introduced myself. Though he seemed like a friendly guy, chitchat was put off for later. Instead, we got straight to it. 

Charlie brought me over to the plane and explained that it was a Cessna 172 - the factory name and size of the engine - with 4 seats. Every plane has an identifying number/letter combination on the side of the aircraft. This one was N3TN. “Since this will be an introductory flight lesson, we’ll start with a ground preflight inspection,” he said. Having no idea what he was talking about I followed like a nervous puppy as he showed me the wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, flaps, propeller, tires and everything else on the outside of the aircraft. He had me feel for cracks, move parts to ensure they worked, and check the amount of oil in the engine. He even had me look between the propeller blades to see if birds had snuck into the engine area to make a nest. This “preflight” check took an hour. I was overwhelmed and we hadn’t even gotten into the plane. Though my heart was beating faster with increasing anxiety, I was determined to forge on.

Once Charlie was satisfied that the outside of the plane was “flight worthy” he helped me into the left front seat. I didn’t know it at the time, but this seat is where the pilot-in-command or the student pilot sits. It was immediately clear that at 5’2”,  I was too short. I couldn’t see over the control panel and my feet barely touched the rudder pedals. He quickly ran to his office and brought back a pile of pillows. I sat on one and two others were placed behind my back. Though they did not compensate fully for my lack of height, it sufficed for the flight.

We then spent an additional 15 minutes checking the controls inside the plane. For example, the little flap-like thing in the back of the plane called the horizontal stabilizer went up and down when the yolk or steering column was pushed back and forth. This is what he told me, but, of course, I had already forgotten what the horizontal stabilizer was.

Finally, Charlie started the engine. There were two sets of controls, one set for each of us. We both had rudder pedals at our feet, a yoke with which to steer and a radio button that allowed us to communicate with each other, other pilots and air traffic control. Once the engine started, my body went into alert mode. Too proud

to reveal my terror, I silently looked out the windshield as he taxied - drove - to the runway. 

The Middlebury Airport is small with no control tower. It has only one runway, which at that time was 1800 feet in length. Trust me, 1800 feet is not very long. After he checked the engine one last time to ensure it was running smoothly, Charlie taxied the plane onto the end of the runway and said to me: “Ok, now you are going to take off.” With my heart now in my throat, I gasped, “What?!” He assured me that I would be fine and then pushed in the throttle - equivalent to stepping on the gas - and we started moving down the runway. I was death gripping the yoke with both hands as the plane increased speed. At some point I was told to gently pull the yoke back, which I did. At that moment the front wheel was off the ground. As the other two wheels followed suit, we went up in the air. Through my headset I heard myself wailing, “Sh***t!!!!” Goodness, did I really say that?

Charlie told me what a good job I was doing, and then said “I’ve got the controls,” which meant he flew while I took a long moment to recover. I realized I had been so nervous my legs were like dual jackhammers with heels bouncing on the floor of the plane. But this was also a moment where I was able to look down onto the Vermont fields, houses and familiar landmarks that even in the moment of fear, were beautiful.

Charlie then asked: “Where do you live?” He quickly identified the road I lived on and flew over the house. Although I couldn’t see our little home in the woods clearly, I knew it was there by spotting our raised bed gardens and a pencil thin driveway. I was beginning to take in the sites without obsessing about the thin

aluminum skin that separated my feet from the outside and a drop of 2000 feet to the ground.

“Where do you want to go now? What would you like to see? You have an hour of flying left.” he said. Because I was clueless how to answer, Charlie suggested we fly over Fort Ticonderoga, a favorite of his due to its rich history. What would have been more than an hour’s drive to Ticonderoga from Middlebury, took us less than 10 minutes to arrive directly over the Fort. The plane was positioned so that the Fort was on my side allowing me to have a good view. As he entered a seemingly steep counter clockwise banking turn around the Fort, Charlie told me to look down.

I want to stop here and warn you, dear reader, that abruptly tilting your head as a plane begins a banking turn is not a wise thing to do. If someone suggests you do it, just say “NO thank you!” I unfortunately was ignorant of this piece of wisdom. In less than a nano-second I was nauseous, car sickness in the air. 

Once he completed the turn and the plane was again straight and level, we began to fly north over Lake Champlain. It was at this time that I heard: “Here. You take the controls.” Not wanting to look like the stomach churning, almost panic stricken wuss I knew I was, I again took the controls and concentrated very hard with my white knuckled hands to steer the plane. “Hey, you are pretty good at this,” said Charlie. “You really should learn to fly.” In response to this suggestion, I taught him how deaf people sign “B*ll Sh*t”. He laughed and then said: “No, I really mean it. You’re pretty good at keeping the plane on course.”

At this point he asked how I was doing. I replied evenly, “I’m feeling pretty sick.” Charlie looked around the back seat of the plane and realized that there were no sick bags. He apologized and in an effort to provide fresh air, reached his long arm behind my back and over my left shoulder to unlatch my window. Then, he pushed it open! As the window swung out and upward, I heard a loud whooshing sound over that of the plane engine. I swear I thought my body was going to be sucked out of the plane! After all, I had seen several movies where people were in their seats one  moment only to be yanked out of a hole in the aircraft the next moment. I didn’t think I could be more frightened or sick. However, I was wrong. 

Charlie casually took the controls and asked if I would like to see the tree damage from the historic ice storm we had a few months earlier. He turned the plane away from the lake, and headed toward Snake Mountain nearby. As he began to descend

just above the tree canopy, he said: “Don’t worry, I used to be a crop duster.” At which point he initiated a steep dive.

So, here I was, nauseous and terrified. I was pretty sure that if we didn’t crash, I was going to fall out of the plane and be impaled on a spear-like tip of an ice damaged maple tree. But I kept saying to myself: “I’m ok… I’m ok… I’m ok. Nope! I’m not ok.” At which point I turned toward the open window and immediately lost my breakfast. This is when I had my first aviation physics lesson: air pressure within a small airplane is less than air pressure outside the aircraft. What this means is that although the contents of my stomach began an outward trajectory, it

was forced back in and landed all over me. Yep. A brand new white shirt and clean jeans were soiled with Cheerios and coffee. The only thing feeling a little better was my traitorous stomach.

With the exception of the air whooshing and engine humming all around us, there was a moment of silence. Charlie then suddenly burst out laughing. This was not a taunting laugh, but one of embarrassment and discomfort. He looked around the cockpit and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have any clean rags, but here use this.” Handing me a dirty, oily rag the size of a washcloth. I wiped my face, sat up ramrod straight in an effort to look dignified and said with the calm voice of a parent trying to control her anger toward an extremely difficult child, “I think we

should go back now.”

It was a wordless 5 minute flight back to the airport. I was so done-in that I didn’t even pray to the gods to let me live through the landing. As soon as the engine was off, I couldn’t get out of the plane fast enough. I made a beeline for my car with Charlie following close behind offering to wash my shirt, buy me a new shirt,

whatever I wanted regarding the ruined shirt. “No thank you.” I said as I got in my car. And that was that. 

Once I was home, showered and in clean clothes, I laid down and slept for three hours. Later that evening I gave Rich a play-by-play rerun of the entire flight. By the time I finished my raffle winning story, we were both laughing with tears running down our faces. I was still unnerved by the experience, but also irritated with my own body for being so sensitive to motion.

The next morning, while driving to work and wondering how I was going to write a thank you note for the flight yet making it clear that I was NEVER getting in a small plane again, I got a call from my son. “Mom, you got a call from a man, Chuck or Charlie. He says you get a second free flight.” Astonished, I said to myself, “Free?” hmmm.

It took me three months before my body was willing to climb back into the plane. I was so angry with myself. I really did not want to be controlled by fear. If I never enjoyed flying, I was determined to be able to tolerate it. A few changes were made for this second flight. First, I armed myself with an anti-nausea tablet to avoid motion sickness. Second, I was not involved in the preflight process. When I arrived, we immediately got into the plane. Third, Charlie flew the entire flight. I just sat passively and let myself look around. Needless to say there were no steep banking turns or dramatic dives.

It was startling how this second flight felt so different from the first. It was gentle, almost calming. 

But the thing that made me want to get back in the air was a cloud. Many people who fly love to look down at the ground. They look for familiar sites, the colors of the topography and marvel at how perspective changes from the air. For me though, it is the sky itself that is so appealing. In this case it was an almost transparent cloud that caught my eye. It was gossamer like, shape-shifting as different wispy edges evaporated and others emerged as water vapor condensed. As the plane slowly flew alongside this cute little cloud floating on a light wind, it struck me that we were dancing together in the air. This brief moment was magical! 

It was at this moment I knew I wanted to learn how to fly. No one was more surprised than I, regarding this change of heart. But the following spring, I returned to the Middlebury Airport and began doing just that.