Sorry, but! :)

I have found myself to be quite busy as of late. I’ve been packing as much in my life as possible, as it seems these days.

I did have an adventure a couple of weeks ago that I would love to tell you about, so here it goes:

A friend of mine (T) is a pilot, and as some of you may know, I’ve had piloting aspirations my entire life. Every once in a while, he has offered to take me on some of his flights, but usually I have been unavailable. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, our schedules aligned and I was able to come with him on a maintenance flight.

This was most certainly a new experience for me for multiple reasons: I’ve only flown an ultralight before, and I’ve only been behind the cockpit of a single prop plane. T professionally flies a King Air B200, I believe. Now, for those of you who do not know what kind of plane this is, it is a double prop plane, and a souped up beauty at that.

When I first got there, T was waiting for me outside the hangar. We walked inside and T told me what this maintenance flight was: cabin air pressure check. “I hope your sinuses are clear or you’re gonna feel it.” Once I heard what they were doing, I admit that I became nervous. They basically let the cabin pressure drop and check the leak rate of the plane, as well as see if the oxygen masks fall as they should. And do you know why they have oxygen masks? Because if you get into high altitude without cabin pressure or an oxygen mask, you get hypoxic. So, I was not really looking forward to seeing how that would feel.

Then we started the pre-flight check. This is something that you have to do every time you fly. I’ve never done one before since the pilot of any plane/ultralight I have been on before did it for me. T showed me all of the neat instrumentation on the plane and let me listen into the radio while he was requesting take-off status.

Once the pre-flight was taken care of, the co-pilot came on and we prepared for take-off.

I got to sit back in a nice comfy leather seat during take-off. We flew up to about 16,000 feet before we reached cruising altitude. T turned around and gave me a thumbs-up. Time to let the pressure drop! I sat in the chair, not feeling anything at first. Then my heart began beating quickly. Then my hands and feet turned blue. Then I felt very light-headed and a little high. I just kept taking deep breaths and my body began to normalize itself with the changes. Once they got to their intended pressure to let the masks fall, I was only feeling light-headed and having a slightly fast heartbeat. The masks fell and I heard them say they were repressurizing the cabin. T then left the cockpit to do the rest of the maintenance check while I hopped into the co-pilot’s seat. I then got to see the man in action.

I got to then fly for about a minute, with some help. I was then told we were ready to go back to land. As we flew back to the airport, I got to help steer the plane, drop the landing gears and apply the breaks. There is nothing like breaking through the clouds and seeing the runway below and head down to land. I loved it.

Hopefully I can soon fly again. T will be giving me flying lessons (in trade for my own services), but I first have to get the funding to do so. Buying my own (used) plane is definitely the cheaper and more economical route to take, but it is finding the money to put up front to do it. For the type of plane that I want to buy, it would cost me less than what we paid for our car. There are definitely some upkeep and hangar costs, however, they are not quite as large as you may think, as you are able to factor those costs into your hourly rate.

So hears to hoping and more flying fun in the future.

-A

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