Shelbi Grist | Student diary | 17th July 2011 – After the First Visit
Today was absolutely amazing! Words cannot describe the emotions that I felt throughout the day. I like being busy, and having today to deal with and needing to drive home to drive to Hereford tomorrow for a camp was a good way to start my week!
I’d flown before, once. In a massive aircraft, y’know a virgin one, but to actually come to terms with “I could be flying a plane” was insane! Obviously I love a challenge, and I love to learn new things and gain experiences but flying a plane, has completely raised the bar for me. I never show my nerves, and I never know I’m nervous until I’m lost for words, because that’s rare. Mum and I arrived at the flying school at Cranfield Airport. We met everybody who are all very friendly and polite, however I was oozing to find out more, about what I’d be doing, when I’d be doing it, how I would do it etc. Goatie explained everything and I took it all in.
When it came to “oh Shelbi we’ll take you up in a plane when the weather clears up” was not what I wanted to hear, despite being really excited I was horrified. The only thing that really worries me is the plane falling randomly out of the sky, don’t know why!
So I’d looked and sat in the plane about an hour before to see what it was like and if I could get in and out of it, all of that was fine, the seats for comfy for my back which was a bonus and all the buttons and levers looked really cool! I was upset to see there were no windscreen wipers however i could manage without them!
The weather had cleared up and off me and Dan (Pilot) went. We started first by taxiing around the airfield with Dan explaining everything that was going to happen during the flight to me, then he’s like “and you can do the take off shelbi” well, at first I thought he was joking, until I saw his expression and he was full on serious, Dan went through the procedure like five times making sure I knew what I had to do, and then we were off blasting down the runway my hands were sweaty, I felt like I was going to be sick, all I could think about was Ben Affleck in Armageddon singing “I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again” even though I knew we’d touch down in 50 minutes.
Well I pulled back on the control column and we were off, all I could see was cruddy grey sky, held back in my seat like when a car goes fast. We were up in the air, and all was fine, we didn’t fall out and I managed to look out my side window whilst gripping my seat tightly, then got real brave and took some photos I even flew the plane for a bit. It was windy up there though, and the plane would like dip and make my tummy feel weird which was funny but I felt safe, the plane looked like it could handle a bit of wind! After we’d flown around for a little bit and I got shown what the plane can do etc, we came into land and got inside just before a massive rain shower hit.
After that we filled in my logbook, I was still like wow did I really just fly in an aeroplane? And then I drove all the way home, realising it would have been quicker to fly!
