“Fly: yes—land: no.”

“A ride? You mean would I like to fly?”
“Well. I'll be handling the flying of course.”
“This is utterly fantastic! If only Clark could see me now...”

My old roommate Brian (aka: Guait—pronounced g’white) works at the Provo airport on the Utah Valley State College airstrip. He’s a certified flight instructor, and as such, he can take perspective students up for their introductory flight. Now, I’m not necessarily planning on signing up for lessons, but when he said he could arrange a free trip up I jumped at the chance.

“So long Earth. Catch you on the flip side.”

I’ll admit, I was pretty nervous about going up. Its not that I don’t have confidence in Guait’s flying ability, but all day long I heard echoes of every local news report of plane crashes in Utah County that I’d ever heard. I spent most of the day hanging out with another old roommate, Ty (aka: Lew) and when he heard of my plans to go up he got pretty nervous too.

“And I’ve got ‘is blankets.”
“Oh, their still warm. Don’t pay extra for the warmth, you know.”
“You should! It’s the only warmth ‘e ever ‘ad.”

I was staying at Lew’s place and when everyone else found out about the flight, and about my worries about possibly not returning from it, all the guys started calling dibs on my possessions. “Dude, I get your TV.” “Hey, can I have your Xbox?” Dustin, who has a Cherokee almost just like mine said, “all I want is your car for parts.”

All apprehensions aside, I arrived at 5pm as scheduled. The adventure began before I even saw the plane. Every pilot in every movie I’ve ever seen always has his wire-rim sunglasses on, so I made sure to bring a pair, then we went to the hanger office where I was equipped with my own headset. Brian grabbed the keys and the flight kit and we headed out to the airstrip. Due to a scheduled resurfacing of the asphalt just outside the hanger, the aircraft were parked about a half mile away from the hanger. Most of the pilots hanging around the office were complaining about this with one another, but I loved it because it made the journey from the hanger to the plane that much cooler.

The first time our family went to Disneyland, my sister Bri was barely two years old. On the trip home, after several days of meeting all the characters and going on all the rides, Mom asked all us kids which was our favorite ride and Bri answered, “That one in the parking lot.” Her answer was a little confusing until we remembered the stupid little tram that shuttled people from the Dopey or Pluto lot to the park’s front entrance. Well, I understand a little more of why she’d choose that as her favorite.

Walking out onto the airstrip with my sunglasses on and my headset in hand made me feel so cool that I sware I could feel time wind down to frame the moment in a sweet slow-motion shot—just like the movies. Then when we got out onto the strip, a guy in a jumpsuit with sunglasses and a crew cut swung by in a golf cart to drive us to our ship. Brian and I held onto the side rails of the cart, sitting on the back and faced south as we were chauffered north—it made me feel like an astronaut!

“Apollo 13 Flight Controllers. Listen up! Give me a
go/no-go for launch... Booster!”
“Go!”
“RETRO!”
“Go!”
“FIDO!”
“We're go, Flight!”
“Guidance!”
“Guidance go!”
“Surgeon!”
“Go, Flight.”
“EECOM!”
“We're go, Flight!”
“GNC!”
“We're go!”
“TELMU!”
“Go!”
“Control!”
“Go, Flight!”
“Procedures!”
“Go!”
“INCO!”
“Go!”
“FAO!”
“We are go!”
"Network!”
“Go!”
“Recovery!”
“Go!”
“CAPCOM!”
“We're go, Flight!”
“Launch Control, this is Houston. We are go for launch!”

Before we could take off, Brian had about 50 pre-flight procedures to go through. He checked every gauge and inspected every bolt. It was sort of interesting and very boring, but seeing how much care it required really set me at ease about the possibility of anything unexpected happening.

“No, I don't think the Empire had Wookiees in mind when they designed her, Chewie.”

We were in a small Katana with one wooden propeller. There was about as much room inside the cockpit as you’d find in a phone booth. Brian and I were situated so close together that our shoulders were pinned together the entire flight. The rudder pedals were adjustable, so I had plenty of leg room, but when we closed the canopy it hit my head. I tried to slouch in my seat as much as I could, but I was just too tall for the plane. I was looking forward to a nice long flight, but when I realized that I’d be uncomfortably craning my neck to the side the entire trip, I decided that a short flight didn’t seem too bad after all.

“Really, what number did you call?”
“Two, four, niner, five, six, seven...”
“I can't hear you, you're trailing off, and did I catch a ‘niner’ in there? Were you calling from a walkie-talkie?”

Brian taxied us around and onto the runway. They just finished the air traffic control tower next to the runway, but its so new that there’s no one in it yet, so all traffic control is dependent on all the aircraft communicating with each other. Our plane’s call numbers were N986CT, which in pilot talk is November Niner Eight Six Charlie Tango. Brian would call out the number into the radio followed by our positioning and our intentions to take off. It turns out that air traffic (in non commercial zones anyway) isn’t nearly as organized as I had expected—mostly its just each pilot telling all the rest where he is and what he’s doing. Other than that, you just keep scanning the horizon for neighboring aircraft and try not to hit them.

“You know how to fly a plane, don’t you?”
“No… do you?”

After a very smooth take off, we were airborne. We flew around a little bit, gaining altitude all the while. Then, before I knew it, we were right above LaVelle Edwards Stadium, holding steady at 7,000 feet and Brian was telling me, “okay, the controls are yours.”

“How hard can it be? Airspeed: okay. Altimeter: okay. Fuel: …fuel!”

I thought he was joking but when I noticed the altimeter reading drop and he didn’t grab the stick, but say, “um, you’re gonna need to pull back a little on the stick,” I finally realized that he was serious.

“Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?”

I was pretty hesitant in my movements at first—I didn’t want to do anything too drastic that would put us into a tailspin and sent us screaming toward the earth, but he coached me into this turn and that, and soon enough I was flying with no coaching at all. He gave me freedom to go wherever I wanted, so I turned east and headed up the Provo canyon.

“These guys are talking about bangs and shimmies up there? Doesn't sound like instrumentation to me.”

I’ve been on planes in turbulent air before, but when the plane is no bigger than a geo metro it really gets rocked—add on top of that the cumulative winds encountered in a canyon, and you can imagine how jolty our journey was. Much of the calm to my nerves that came from the confidence Brian had in me to maneuver the plane quickly faded once that choppy air started its spin cycle.

“Use the force, Luke… Let go Luke.”
“The force is strong with this one.”
“Luke, trust me.”

My grandfather was an Air Force pilot during World War II and flew in the reserves for years. He died two years ago next month. Even though I wasn’t under a lot of pressure to perform, nor did I have the fate of the freedom of the entire galaxy on my shoulders, in the same way Ben Kenobi’s voice came to Luke when he was flying down the trench en-route to destroying the Death Star, I too could feel my Grandpa Bryant’s presence in the cockpit with me, calming me. It was the closest I’ve felt to him since his passing.

“You were in a 4g inverted dive with a Mig28?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“At what range?”
“Um, about 2 meters.”
“It was actually about 1 and a half I think. It was 1 and a half, I've got a great Polaroid of it, and he's right there--must be 1 and a half.”
“It was a nice picture.”
“Thanks.”

I took us up the canyon, around the Heber valley, and back down the canyon, then I handed the controls back over to Guait, so I could snap a few photos of the view. The rock formations on the mouth of the canyon are gorgeous so I got a few shots of that. We also flew right over the corn maze in Pleasant Grove that Ty, Dustin, and I had been at just two days before—turns out the maze is cut into a picture of John Kerry and George Bush. To fly over Provo reminded me of the beauty of that place, and I’m grateful for the experience, because so often in a town where we have lived but have been so busy that we just run around to get things done, we forget to look at how pretty everything around us is, and even though its right under our noses, we miss it.

“The defense department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid.”

After some sight seeing, Brian asked if I was done taking pictures. I said I was so he said, “Okay, then. Hold onto your camera.” I did as he said and no sooner than my last finger secured its grip on my camera, Brian cut the throttle to zero and dove the nose of the plane. My stomach leaped up into my throat and stayed there until he pulled up and out of it. I was panting and Brian was laughing when he explained, “you just pulled your first G.”

“What's your problem, Kazanski?”

“You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.”

I’d always heard pilots say that on movies and stuff, but I’d never experienced it. I was so scared the first time that I didn’t get to enjoy it. So I asked him to do it again. This time I took my camera out of the death grip I had on it to video tape the dive. It was a whole lot more fun the second time—probably because I was expecting it, but disappointingly it doesn’t look half as exciting on film as it really was. The one thing I really remember was how difficult it was to hold up my camera—it felt like the little 8 ounce camera suddenly became a 16 pound bowling ball.

“Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you.”

We landed shortly after that—a very smooth, very safe landing. We went through the post-flight procedures and left the airstrip in the same rockstar/astronaut way. I couldn’t stop thanking Brian. I had so much fun and it was the kind of thing I’d never have been able to do on my own, and may never get to do again. Its out of the ordinary things like that that make life sweet. Experiences that you don’t have every day, when you do have them, you realize how wonderfully unpredictable life can be. Thanks, Guait—it was something that I’ll never forget.