It wasn’t until 1 year and 4 months after earning my Private Pilot License before I took my husband up for his first flight. He simply didn’t have the interest. He said, “It would be just like taking a Sunday drive.” I guess that’s better than hearing him say, “I never fly on days that end in “Y”, or something of that nature. Until he was ready, I utilized my time to gain more experience and improve my confidence.
Much to my surprise on September 2006 my husband said yes to flying. So, we headed to Mexico…….. Mexico Missouri (KMYJ) that is, 64 nautical miles away.
All the while during pre-flight of a Cessna 152, I kept saying to myself, please…. don’t let anything go wrong or he’ll never fly with me again. Larry is 6 foot and weighs 200 pounds so I had to have some fuel removed from the plane. While the line service attendant was trying to figure out how to remove the fuel, my husband was adding 1 quart of oil. I was glad to see him take part in this event. I wanted this day to be perfect. In the meantime, another Cessna 152 came in and was offered to me so all I had to do was add fuel. I took them up on the offer, did a new pre-flight and next thing I knew I was plugging away at my checklist. “Up, down, left, up, down, left, right”…..yes, the controls checked out good. I had to apologize every time I moved the yoke as it hit Larry in the knees. Ouch! Poor guy was packed in like a sardine. I noticed the suction gage looked a little funny, but it was in the green. I tapped on it and it remained a little “cock-eyed”. Everything seemed to be working properly. I kept looking back at the suction gage, though, as something just didn’t see right.
Off we went. The take-off was smooth. I dialed into flight service to activate my flight plan, however, no one answered. I kept my cool and said to myself, “It’s not the end of the world. I’m flying VFR and it’s not required to file." Although, I would have preferred to.
We were tooling along and looking for the sparsely placed checkpoints; a lake here, a highway there. It would have been easier to see them if it wasn’t for the haze. At this point, my nerves were starting to frazzle. I begged for this to be a trouble free flight. First the fuel, then Larry’s knee bashing, then I couldn’t get a hold of Flight Service to activate my plan, now the haze, what else could go wrong. I dialed in a VOR and it was working like a champ. Yeah!!! Something was working. Larry was busily looking at the map and finding landmarks. He was folding and refolding the map and had no idea at this point we were without an attitude indicator and a heading indicator. GREAT!! I just had a vacuum pump failure. I wasn’t about to say the word “failure”, as that word could take on many meanings to someone who didn’t fly. I lightly mentioned, “Oh, looky there, my attitude indicator is spinning in circles and the heading is off, oh….. a few 100 degrees. I’ll just use these three other instruments. We’re good. Is that the runway up there?”
Yes!!! Victory! Five thousand one hundred wonderful feet of concrete was lying up ahead! After landing my husband reached over and patted me on the knee saying, “You did good dear”.
Although my husband’s first flight was not a perfect one, it was overall a great one. As, he’s interested in going again real soon. His only request was to rent a 172 next time.
Much to my surprise on September 2006 my husband said yes to flying. So, we headed to Mexico…….. Mexico Missouri (KMYJ) that is, 64 nautical miles away.
All the while during pre-flight of a Cessna 152, I kept saying to myself, please…. don’t let anything go wrong or he’ll never fly with me again. Larry is 6 foot and weighs 200 pounds so I had to have some fuel removed from the plane. While the line service attendant was trying to figure out how to remove the fuel, my husband was adding 1 quart of oil. I was glad to see him take part in this event. I wanted this day to be perfect. In the meantime, another Cessna 152 came in and was offered to me so all I had to do was add fuel. I took them up on the offer, did a new pre-flight and next thing I knew I was plugging away at my checklist. “Up, down, left, up, down, left, right”…..yes, the controls checked out good. I had to apologize every time I moved the yoke as it hit Larry in the knees. Ouch! Poor guy was packed in like a sardine. I noticed the suction gage looked a little funny, but it was in the green. I tapped on it and it remained a little “cock-eyed”. Everything seemed to be working properly. I kept looking back at the suction gage, though, as something just didn’t see right.
Off we went. The take-off was smooth. I dialed into flight service to activate my flight plan, however, no one answered. I kept my cool and said to myself, “It’s not the end of the world. I’m flying VFR and it’s not required to file." Although, I would have preferred to.
We were tooling along and looking for the sparsely placed checkpoints; a lake here, a highway there. It would have been easier to see them if it wasn’t for the haze. At this point, my nerves were starting to frazzle. I begged for this to be a trouble free flight. First the fuel, then Larry’s knee bashing, then I couldn’t get a hold of Flight Service to activate my plan, now the haze, what else could go wrong. I dialed in a VOR and it was working like a champ. Yeah!!! Something was working. Larry was busily looking at the map and finding landmarks. He was folding and refolding the map and had no idea at this point we were without an attitude indicator and a heading indicator. GREAT!! I just had a vacuum pump failure. I wasn’t about to say the word “failure”, as that word could take on many meanings to someone who didn’t fly. I lightly mentioned, “Oh, looky there, my attitude indicator is spinning in circles and the heading is off, oh….. a few 100 degrees. I’ll just use these three other instruments. We’re good. Is that the runway up there?”
Yes!!! Victory! Five thousand one hundred wonderful feet of concrete was lying up ahead! After landing my husband reached over and patted me on the knee saying, “You did good dear”.
Although my husband’s first flight was not a perfect one, it was overall a great one. As, he’s interested in going again real soon. His only request was to rent a 172 next time.
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