Not-so-great moments in piloting

There are traits that make a pilot good.  Diligence.  Intelligence.  Attention to detail.  Proactiveness.  Intestinal fortitude.

 

It is on the last count early-on that I failed miserably.  This is an embarrassing story but I'm going to tell it anyways.  This is the time I barfed all over my flight instructor.

 

When I first began flying, I lined up financing, did my homework, visited my target schools, did my due diligence as it were.  The first flight was as it should be, magical and overwhelming and awe-inspiring, bird-like transcendence yadda yadda you get the drift.  It was the second day that I got into trouble.

 

We were running the gamut, strait-and-level flight, flight controls, the four forces in balance.  I started to feel a little woozy so we land.  As a lark, I buy a air sickness bag.

 

Let me rewind this day a little.  My wife, God bless her, decided to make me a large breakfast.  Eggs, sausage, waffles, the whole 9.  I drank a Red Bull on the way to the airport.  My own personal NTSB investigation would pinpoint this as the key turning point in the poor decision chain that ended so calamitously.

 

So we take off and are doing some spirals when I start getting that feeling.  The warm spit rising feeling.  Oh no.  No no no. 

 

I tell my flight instructor and he tells me to focus on the instruments.  I've heard it told both ways, that you should look at the instruments or you should look outside.  I'll have to look that one up.  But whatever the desired effect was, it was not accomplished. 

 

And one thought raced through my head: "Where the hell is that bag?!?!?!"

 

Under the calm circumstances on the ground later, I did manage to find it in my back pocket.  But up there in the plane, I swear I checked all my pockets twice to no avail. 

 

And then I barfed.  I tried to hold it back with my hands, but it was like trying to stop a river surging from a broken dam.  It rocketed through my fingers all over my self, the instruments, and my poor flight instructor.

 

So there we are 5,000 feet above the earth sitting in a vast pool of my vomit.  I was more mortified than I have been since Jr. High.  The smell just permeated the cockpit.  My CFI (Certified Flight Instructor to the civilians out there) has sort of an ashen look on his face.

 

Does anyone remember that scene in "Stand By Me" with the chain reaction vomit circle?

 

Luckily, he was an old pro.  He opened the windows and gave me an early and important aviation lesson.  "Fly the plane," he said.  "No matter what happens, fly the plane."  I managed to point us in the right direction and we completed the trip home.

 

What I thought was funny was my CFI's reaction.  "I'm not mad at you," he told me.  A week later, as a managed to pull it together and do some normal flying, he said "... I was a little mad at you."  Later, when I had many lessons and acquired many of the necessary tools, he was like "... Remember that second day?  I was mad at you."

 

I learned that a few other CFIs also threw up early in their training.  Apparently, air-sickness is a somewhat common phenomenon, which is aggravated by caffeine.  I learned that though caffeine might be necessary for everyday activities, the adrenaline from flying was more than enough to keep me on my toes.  I learned to eat light before flying and eat heavy afterwards.  Most of all, I learned to always always fly the plane.

 

And to lay off the Red Bull for breakfast.