flight lesson...

part of jarad's birthday present was a demo flight lesson to catalina island.  he is very into remote control helicopters and planes, so i thought he would enjoy the real thing.  i have had several friends take these demo flights and they all rave about it.  my understanding is that you are with an experienced pilot who will let you take over during parts of the flight...much like the kid who gets to sit on their parents lap while steering the golf cart, but that was hardly the case.

when we arrived at "fly corona" we were greeted by our "pilot", who appeared to be a few years younger than us and had been doing this for 2 years.  there is something odd to me that you can get your pilots license in 40 hours, but it takes 1600 hours of practice to be able to cut someone's hair!?!?!?  he showed us our plane and asked if we had done this before.  jarad replied that he fixes and flies rc helicopters and planes as a hobby.  i think the pilot was confused by this, and assumed we had done this before.  he gave jarad all of 3 minutes of instruction before they pushed the plane out to the runway and jarad was getting ready to take off.

 

jarad got the plane safely off the ground and i was a nervous wreck in the back seat.

he got to fly the entire time to catalina island and back (1 1/2 hours) with the exception of the very last minute of landing.  we had beautiful views the entire time, and got to see a huge pod of dolphins and three whales.

 

it was a beautiful day to take a ride in an airplane, we had to cancel our lesson 2 times prior due to bad weather.  it was a fun thing to be able to do together, but i am so glad jarad does not have the desire to pursue flying.