I was always an aviation nut, became a jet mechanic in the USN, and when personal computers became a thing, I purchased every flight simulator I could find that would run on my computer.
I got involved in an online combat flight simulator “Warbirds” back in the mid-nineties, and built a whole setup with a chair that had stick, rudder, and throttle attached permanently to it...I loved it. Did it for about five years...she would come in while I was in the middle of a pitched dogfight and with a big grin, put her arms around my neck, which resulted in the virtual shudder of having my plane hit by cannon shells or such...
I would rather have got a pilot’s license, but...my wife would never be able to go up in a small plane like that with me flying. She would be a nervous wreck, so...I never spent the money and went that route.
But I did have a guy take me up in his plane once (a Beechcraft Bonanza...the infamous V-Tailed Doctor Killer) and as we flew, he said “Would you like to fly?”
Boy...would I! So...there I went. It was great, I felt as if I could fly it anywhere. I felt completely at home, doing coordinated turns, in control. He said “Come on...fly it!”
So I gave it a steep bank...it was perfect! Man, I sure would like to be able to fly.
But I won’t, ever, unless my wife and I part ways, which I am not going to like.
But playing that game all those years sure did make it feel like I could fly. I have no doubt, if someone put me in a plane, told me how to start the engine and gave me some basic instruction, I could take that thing off.
I am sure landing would be something else altogether!
And therein lay my moment of dread. For all the flapping tassels on the handlebar grips and clacking of playing cards on the spokes, I realized at that last micro-second of pre-impact, that none of it was going to change my trajectory, altitude, or speed. Everything after that was a wind-sucking, lung-collapsing swirl of stars in my eyes and the taste of dirt in my mouth. The ramp got chucked over the side of the hill and into the trees, and I never got on a bike again until my parents got me this thing called a ‘ten-speed’ at Christmas. I was a little better at that. Being a mountain boy, I decided that staying attached to the ground in some fashion was God’s way of pre-ordaining my place in the cosmic pecking order.
My roommate flew us (me, him and our girlfriends) to Catalina. After we took off on the return trip with the goyls in the back he said “Would you like to try flying this?”, “Sure!” He didn’t know I’d done this a whopping once before.
Bank left, bank right, climb, dive, level out. “Pretty easy.”
The SOB had me fly it all the way back to Cable field near Pomona, including the descent to about 50-100 ft off the deck before he took over. He handled the radio, fed me the bearings and altitudes to maintain, and did most of the see part of see and be seen. When we got close to landing I was convinced he was going to let me bounce it all the way down the runway!
We get out of the plane and I nearly collapse, the goyls look at him and said “What’s the matter with him?” “Oh nothing, he just flew all the way back from Catalina...” “He WHAT????”
They both turned a whiter shade of pale!
Good times, good times...