Any Certified Flight Instructors here??

[flyingblind]

I doubt I could ever afford the cost of getting a PPL but I finally got to cash in my Christmas present from my youngest daughter a few days ago which was a voucher for an hour long flying lesson, bless her little socks. For an extra £16 I was able to upgrade to a slightly bigger plane so she and the missus could come along for the ride. When I say slightly bigger I mean slightly as we got a Cessna 172 which reminded me of getting into an elderly fiat 500 from the 50's, only more cramped.

The weather was perfect with light wind, brilliant sunshine and a smattering of Cumulus clouds.The flying school was based at Exeter Airport and after a quick briefing the instructor took us off and got up to a few thousand feet before letting me take the controls. After countless hours on IL2 I found no problem taking the controls of a real aircraft albeit a pretty basic one and after doing a few manouvers the instructor was happy to sit back and let me get on with it. I followed the A38 South round the Southern edge of Dartmoor towards Plymouth passing over our house on the way. Just before Plymouth I turned round and headed back along the coast flying over Burgh Island, Salcombe, Dartmouth and Torbay. The sea was the sort of colour you would expect in the Caribean. At the Exe estuary we turned in towards the airport begining the descent. As the runway came into sight the instrutor took the controls back and brought us down. I had an ear to ear grin from start to finish.

Apart from the views and the sheer fun of it the best thing I got out of it was comparing a real flight with flying on a computer. The biggest difference I found was the planes movement which took me by surprise. Despite being a calm day there was a lot of bumping and swaying at low altitude in such a small plane that had my stomach struggling a bit to keep up. The girls in the back looked wide eyed and as green as grass and ready to grab the sick bags. This got better once over 3000 ft but even the gentle manouvers I was making with the controls had a similar unsettling effect until we got used to it. It would take many hours of flying before I would be comfortable even thinking about the sort of manouvers in a dog fight! LOL.