Last weekend I took some time off from feeling low for a chance to feel high. My pilot friend Googled his way to my webpage while he was looking for info on the old Raleigh Municipal Airport. Anyhow, he invited me up for a flight and who am I to refuse?
We left from Southern Jet at 9 AM last Sunday. The RDU airport, normally a bustling hive of aircraft activity, was still sleeping. Sunday mornings are quiet at most any airport. The sun was blazing and the sky was dotted with puffy clouds as Justin went through his pre-flight checklist.
Justin is fortunate to own his own plane, a 1963 Piper Cherokee. He’s crammed it with the latest IFR equipment and crammed his brain with the skills to use it. Typical for any subject Justin studies, he’s done in two years what some people take decades to do.
Anyhow, we left the ground and decided that our first stop should be for gas. Justin plugged in coordinates for the Siler City airport and off we went. Once out of ATC airspace Justin turned the controls over to me. Though we were skimming over the clouds at 4000 feet, the air was silky smooth. It made me look like a good pilot or something.
As we approached Siler City the cloudcover got a bit more dense. Justin found a clearing and we touched down at Siler City, a sleepy airport with little in the way of attractions other than cheap AV gas. Justin popped his card into the pay-at-pump gas pump and told me how once he was landing there and nearly smacked into a farmer driving his tractor across the runway. Apparently the airport is so quiet, even the locals don’t know its there.
From there it was off to Sanford, the home of the Wings of Carolina Flying Club and where Justin got his training. At the plane’s 120+ MPH ground speed it didn’t take us long to touch down. Justin ran into one of the club’s flight instructors and traded stories with him for a short time. Like fishermen with their fish stories, every pilot has a tale to tell. I’ve never met a pilot who didn’t love to talk about flying.
After Sanford we made a beeline to do a quick flyover of my home in Garner. Well, it would’ve been a beeline if the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant wasn’t in the way. We passed it in a nice wide arc to keep from getting a not-so-friendly military escort. My GPS led Justin right to my neighborhood and we did a few lazy loops over it while I got some video. Then it was back to RDU for landing.
Justin put the plane gently on the ground again and taxied us back to Southern Jet. When the prop was still again he remarked that he couldn’t remember moving his plane through RDU any quicker than he did that day. It was like we were the only plane around, which helps maximize our flight time.
After a great time flying, I thanked Justin and headed for home. On the highway, I realized that I wasn’t in the euphoric mood I’d been other times I’d been flying. This time around, it almost seemed routine. Maybe this attitude was a signal that I’m really ready to take the plunge and become a pilot myself.
Flying is fun and likely always will be. I just feel now like I belong in the cockpit. And that’s pretty cool.