Taking newbies flying...

Sometimes, you just can't tell...

I have always prided myself on flying as gently and conservatively with all
my passengers, especially my kids. My older boy has always been a little
queasy while I was flying. I tried all the usual tricks- ginger, dramamine,
electronic wrist band, and nothing really took care of the problem. I let
him fly straight and level, and he was okay with that, but flying was too
uncomfortable for him to be fun.

So today I took him up. It was an unusual day in the East, no turbulence and
excellent visibility. He asked if we could do some "high G" stuff. I said
okay, let's try some steep turns. He had been following alone on the
controls all along, but I took over and cranked it into a 45 degree turn (I
was pleasantly surprised as the altimeter stayed pegged, since it's been
awhile) and then rolled into a similar turn in the other direction. He
loved it! I said, okay, see that long straight road, let's drop down a
little and we'll do some S turns. Then we climbed up and did some stalls,
and then some steep turns around a point.

So, we went through some basic but vigorous airwork, and he enjoyed every
minute, much more than when I was trying to act line an airline pilot. In
some rare cases, there is such a thing as being too gentle. I guess the
real trick is knowing when those are.