Having spent decades criss-crossing the oceans and continents of the world, I’ve inevitably endured the odd bad experience when flying. I was once violently thrown out of my seat by sudden extreme turbulence high above the Bay of Bengal, and on a flight to Strandhill the day before Grannie Nelson’s funeral, we made three attempts to land before admitting defeat and diverting to Knock. Leaving aside the tedium of long security queues, extreme delays, and being stuck in middle seats on long-haul flights – I still love flying – that feeling of being suspended miles above it all, marvelling down at the seemingly infinite Sahara, the Aussie outback, the Greenland glaciers, or the Hoover Dam.
So you can imagine my excitement when a dear friend presented me with a voucher for a flying lesson for my most recent birthday. Having rescheduled my gift flight twice due to low cloud and inclement weather, I finally walked into the National Flight Centre at Weston Airport – a pleasant place just to hang out, or enjoy a grand lunch with great coffee upstairs in the Viewing Restaurant.
My charming young instructor escorted me to our awaiting Cessna 152 for my pre-flight briefing, explaining to me the function of the wings, propellor, tail, fuel tanks, pedals, controls, and the control panel/dashboard. There was just about enough room for the two of us : we each had controls. He explained that once we were up he would affirm into my headset “You have control”, to which I was to respond “I have control”, and were I to panic or were things to go wrong, of course vice-versa.
As we got strapped in, received clearance, and became airborne in this paper-light aircraft we were thrown about a bit by the wind, but hey this tenor loves turbulence, so no problem.
Gaining altitude, we passed over Castletown House, across Kildare’s green pastures, the spires of Maynooth, following the M4 out beyond Enfield, and then I heard the words “Ok, you have control”, to which I obediently and authoritatively responded “I have control”.
I had control.
There was a brief moment where I felt like Dougal in “Father Ted” in front of the big red flashing light in the cockpit, but then as I diligently focussed the Cessna’s nose on the Westmeath horizon, my mind started examining the word ‘control’. I thought about the German Wings co-pilot abusing his ‘control’ by crashing the Airbus A320 into the Alps with 150 people on board, including busy opera singers, and innocent students from the German town of Haltern-am-See with their entire lives ahead of them. That wasn’t suicide, that was pre-meditated mass murder. He may have suffered from depression, but you can’t blame depression for maliciously engineering and executing a plane crash. I thought about the 9/11 bombers, murderers, crashing planes into buildings, mis-using the word “jihad’ which is supposed to mean ‘religious duty’ and not ‘holy war’ as it’s been misinterpreted.
Perhaps I ought to have been given a psychological assessment before I flew? Really. My ever-helpful, informative instructor who had handed me ‘control’ didn’t know my mental history. I didn’t even have a security check. How was he to know I wasn’t concealing a knife, a Black-belt in Karate, serious mental illness, or a death-wish?
What a pity we can’t rediscover the buzz and excitement of the early years of air travel, before it became tainted by 21st Century problems and issues? Consider the overwhelming exhilarating feats of aviation pioneers such as The Wright Brothers as they invented and built the first successful planes, or Amelia Earhart breaking several aviation records to become the first lady to fly solo across the Atlantic, or the sense of extreme achievement Alcock and Brown savoured as they crash-landed in a Connemara bog.
As I held on to ‘control’, my pilot instructed me to gain altitude as demonstrated, head downwards by pointing the Cessna’s nose down, take a right turn towards Trim in the distance, and finally a left swing all the way back around towards Weston, where thankfully he regained control, landing flawlessly.
My 30 minute flight was over, I have the certificate to prove it, and I’d highly recommend the experience, either in Weston or in Sligo.
But for God’s sake, don’t let that ‘control’ go to your head.
