Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Wings

Last Sunday la cocotte and I went for an airplane ride. This in itself is not unusual. In her short life, la cocotte has done her more than her fair share of cruising at 37,000 feet. What was noteworthy about this flight was that our pilot was none other than hubby! La cocotte and I were his first passengers with him as the pilot in command - to be clear he has flown other people whilst still a student with the instructor present however this flight was all him. Hubby has been working on his pilot's license on and off for close to two years, he got sort-of close before we left Montreal and then there was a bit of lag time while we were finding our bearings here, didn't have a car and he slowly searched for a new flight school. Long story short, he has been working on his license out of a small airport in Divaca, Slovenia and about two weeks ago, he got his wings.

It's a strange thing when someone close in one's life makes an important life change, be it a positive, negative, obvious or subtle change. It can take awhile for those close to the change-maker to intellectually absorb and accept the change. So even though hubby has been coming home 1-2 times per week with stories of his flying lessons, studying flight manuals and taking online courses for the past almost two years, I still had not quite absorbed the change. As we backtracked down the runway to get into position for takeoff, hubby in the pilot seat, me behind him and la cocotte looking utterly non-plussed in her car-turned-airplane seat next to me, I was hit by a very brief but very strong moment of panic where it suddenly occurred to me that we had left the pilot behind. It was utterly surreal to only be the three of us in an airplane that was about to be airborne.

But as the wheels left the ground and hubby continued to do all the pilotey things that one says and does while climbing to 3000 feet, the panic subsided very quickly and I found myself being amazed and proud that hubby had learnt to fly a plane, learnt it so well in fact that the officiating body in Slovenia (Transport Slovenia? that can't be right) had given him the legal right to do so. I was impressed that he was even able to act as a tour guide pointing out various sights of interest as he tooled us around the sky.

The flight was short by design. Hubby's instructor suggested that a short flight was in order to see how well la cocotte and I took to being flown by him. La cocotte had a good doze and I had an incredibly gorgeous scenic flight over a beautiful country, flown by my husband, the pilot.

Despite the short flight, there was a beverage service.


Stop reading the user manual and fly the plane! Fly the plane! 


Gorgeous, green countryside of Slovenia.


Striking sinkhole in the landscape caused by underground cavities (caves) that sometimes collapse when they are close to the surface.


Walled, hillside city (don't know the name), despite the lack of perspective you can tell it is on a steep hill by the shape of the road leading up to it in the bottom of the picture.


Under wing mountain.


Our handsome pilot.


Our blasé baby.

6 comments:

  1. Having played with some simulators, I'd have been fine until the landing. 300 attempts, 300 crashes is my record - no one's ever going to let me land a plane! Once, having flown the simulated plane under the Brooklyn Bridge, then between the torch and head of the Statue of Liberty, I managed to get the plane to spin on all three axes at once, causing the pilot who was over my shoulder to exclaim "That's impossible! It must be a glitch in the program."

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  2. Oh, that is awesome. Congrats to your hubby! Learning to fly is something I have dreamed of for a number of years, but actually doing it is a whole different story. So, is he going to fly you guys back to Canada?

    Great photo captions, by the way. And I have to ask, do Canadians seriously spell "learned" "learnt"? I would have doubted you, but you just can't doubt someone who just wrote "non-plussed" :).

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  4. Wow, that's awesome. Isn't it crazy to be in such a small plane? And he can fly in Canada although he got his pilot's license in Slovenia?

    SLG, "learnt" is the proper Cambridge English. You Americans...you always try to make things easier, for example by turning irregular verbs into regular ones:)

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  5. Thanks, mmmonyka. Geez. I should have known.

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