I reveiwed my older posts and realized, I never wrote about my experience in learning to fly! Oh me, oh my, what an oversight. So let's correct that. When I was living and working in Lemoore, CA on the Lemoore Navy Airbase, I had the chance to join the Navy Flying Club. I started taking flying lessons from a very experienced teacher and I flew a plane! Me, at the controls. I've made the plane go up, go down, and go all around. In total I have 6 hours of fly time uder my belt which, alas, is not enough time to have flown solo, taken off, or landed a plane yet. I have just enough fly time to be hooked and wanting to get back into the cockpit and take off again!! It feels tremendously freeing to be flying a plane. That moment when you leave the ground and defy gravity just rocks. And being up in the air, with the unbeatable view, with freedom at your fingertips, nothing like it. I've driven sports cars, motorcycles, ATVs and none of those ground-bound contraptions compare. I've been on battle ships the size of a sky scraper, ocean fishing boats, catamarans, canoes, and rafts. And none of those water bound crafts compare. Flying is it's own unique, beautiful experience especially when the controls are in your hands. I went skydiving with a friend for her birthday and she asked how I liked it. It was my second time and I was very blasé about the whole thing. I told her was fun free falling and working the parachute but I'd rather have been flying the plane! Side bar: you may be catching on to the fact that I have some control issues where I like to be the one in charge of me. And I love that not even gravity can say otherwise. In case you were wondering, it's expensive flying a plane but the on-base flying club was a bit cheaper than most. The club was subsidized through the Moral, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) command which every Navy base has. That way the club can offer discounts on their fees. And while I had some play money when I started, I ended up having to cover my own college tuition which ended my flying lessons. Work had been paying for college, which was awesome, until they weren't, which was sad. From my whopping 6 hours of flight I have come away with three good stories.
The flight club is on a Navy aviation base and uses the same runway as the fighter jets. So for my first time out to the club I was on the operations side and driving around the edge of the airfield looking for a way to the club house. In my personal experience as a Marine on an air base the Rule to Never Break is crossing the red line of the air field. If you do, you have better have a reason to be out there and following all of the rules. A top rule being, no POVs (personally owned vehicles). So I could see the club house through the perimeter fence but I couldn't see a way to it. I call and guy directs me around a building and through the fence onto, fuck me, the airfield. It's a section with lots of maintenance items and no planes, but it's still the red line of 'oh hell no'. The club guy tells me it's totally okay, look for my truck and park next to it. When I get into the club house he asks why I was so hesitant, what did I think was going to happen, that security was going to detain me or something? And I said yes, exactly. If this was a marine base and I drove my car on the airfield I would have a boot on my neck and face in the tarmac faster than you can say 'what the fuck?' But it's not, and I didn't, so it's all good.
The first day that I flew, after we had landed, the instructor had me taxi the plane back to the hanger bay. In my job on the base I spend a good bit of time around these jets when they are in the hanger bay. I know how big they are in relation to me on the ground walking around them. However, it is a completely different story when you are in a tenny, tiny, four seat prop plane and you come face to face with a Giant Fighter Jet. I was taxing us, the tower told us to hold postion, so I did, and around the coner, coming straight towards me, was a fucking bohemath of a plane. The sucker could kock me over with his exhaust and not even know he had done so. Much like a huge tractor triler and an itty bitty coup on the highway. So I held my breath, perfectly happy to give up the right of way to the jet, until he turned down a feeder lane back to his hanger bay and I could continue on my way. Phew! My last story is less happy. When on the ground I put a grease mark on the windshield where the horizon is at. Then when in the air, I use the that mark to level off the plane by again placing it on the horizon. Central Valley California is an extremely polluted place with absolutely terrible air quality. I've looked it up and the 3 of the top ten cities for over the national average of asthma are cities in central valley. I personnaly experiened a 6 month cough and congestion until I left the valley. So when I get in the air, 4 times out of 6 I had to put that horizon mark in the center of the smog layer. That layer of muck which coates the entire horizon. Saddest thing I've heard in a long time is, 'Since you can't see the horizon, place the mark in the middle of the smog layer.' from my instructor. Oi vey.