Taking newbies flying...

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:29:52 -0600, "Dan Luke"
wrote:

...offers endless opportunities for screwing up the experience for them, as
I've demonstrated yet again.

My business partner's 21-yr. old son has been hinting around for a few years
that he wanted to try flying sometime. When he finally asked outright to
take a flight, I was happy to agree, especially since he would be bringing
along his supermodel-quality girlfriend.

So T_ and M_ showed up at the airport Saturday afternoon. T_ was interested
in everything that was happening on the ramp and M_ was stopping students
and flight instructors in mid-sentence as she walked by. The weather was
perfect and this was going to be great fun.

After the walkaround and passenger briefing, I got my pax headsetted and
buckled in and gave T_ a description of how the controls worked. I let him
steer on the long taxi out to RWY 36. Cleared for takeoff, I let him
control the yoke. He did fine on the rotation and climbout, so I let him
make the climbing 180 deg. left turn to our departure heading. He did that
fine, too. Once I got T_ trimmed out and flying level, I turned to M_ in
the back seat to ask how she was doing.

Ummm..., not so well: M_ had the look of someone who had just stared death
in the face.

" Doing OK, M_?"

I have a short story based on real experiences of real people and
pilots although they may be composites of multiple flights. The names
are changed to protect the innocent. Any one who has been around this
NG for a while will recognize at least a couple of the situations.:-)
and not they are not all my experiences.

http://www.rogerhalstead.com/flight.htm

Although this is from 95 I started a series about 2 or 3 years earlier
for our Barstow Aeroclub which was an airport support group. This is
prior to EAA Chapter 1093 forming.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com