It was June 19th and I accepted a sudden invitation to visit Jim's house. I was expecting the day to be quite a lazy one with some swimming and then relaxing in front of the TV. There was another Indian family visiting so there was quite some stuff going in the house. On the way he told me something that made my stomach do a internal flip. He told me that later that afternoon, we'd be going to check out some private owned aircraft and possible even get a ride on one of them. He told me about this before but I didn't expect it to come so quickly and so unexpectedly.
Trying to keep my excitement in control, I let the day go by. I went bicycling out in the sun for a few miles and it was fun. The almost unlimited combination of gear settings helped me well against the constant 10-15mph wind. After lunch, we had a session of watching a recorded show of the top 25 moments of MythBusters. And then, finally came the moment I was really waiting for. It was time to get movin' to get flyin'!
It was in a small airport in a small town called Benton. The airport was easily the smallest and most accessible I ever saw. The parking lot was quite literally inside. Step out of the car, step onto the grass and you're already a few meters from the runway. We casually walked around looking for Jim's friend who was no where to be seen. We accidentally gate-crashed into a private party that was being held in one of the hangars. We came across some exotic antique cars, planes and helicopters and I wanted to take photos of everything. Among the antiques, there were also some modern Camaros, Carreras and Aerobatic planes, gliders and stuff. There was just too much to take in.
After long walks up and down the runway in the extreme heat, we still couldn't find Jim's friend. There was a rock band playing outside a bar and we even looked inside to see if he was there. Finally after a long wait the stearman flew in. It landed just a few meters away and it was quite spectacular to watch. After the plane taxied, we could meet him at last. It was a little disappointing to hear him say he was almost done for the day. He wanted to take some of his family members out into the sky and end the day. Jim and I just hung around watching the smoke fly-bys and taking bursts of photos. After 2 rides, we realized he was done for the day.
But suddenly, he pointed straight at me and pointed into the empty seat in the cockpit! For a second I was like, "You're Kidding!" But he wasn't! Jim urged me forward and said, "Here's your chance". Unable to believe my luck, I went forward. I got into the leather head gear and got buckled to the seat. I had to receive a few instructions on not to step on or hold any of the delicate fabric made wings. Of course the main thing was not to touch any of the controls in the cockpit. I was sitting in the front cockpit and Randy (the pilot) was sitting behind me. Within seconds, we taxied onto the runway and off we went. The noise of the wind was almost drowning the sound of the engine. The moment we took off, the ground just disappeared under me. The take-off speed was much lower than usual commercial aircraft so there was no feeling of everything draining out of the head. Or maybe I was too excited to notice that! The view was amazing! The green fields and an unobstructed view of the horizon. I felt like I was flying free. The lack of any barriers or noise insulation just made the whole thing 10 times more exciting.
I'm getting into the seat carefully
Once in the air, he tapped me on my elbow and did a thumbs up asking me if I was ok with continuing. Is that even a question to ask? Of course I wanted to go on. And I did a healthy thumbs up to say go on as long as you can. I tried taking pictures with my camera but just couldn't hold it up. Inspite of both hands supporting the camera, I was still struggling to hold it in place. The drag my hands were experiencing was just too much. 80mph is not really an easy speed to hold hands out. At one instance, I got distracted and almost had the camera slipping out of my hands. Luckily I held on. By this time, I switched to video shooting mode to see how it would come out.
My view from the cockpit of the Stearman
And this went on for just 5 minutes. We were making simple trips around the airport and releasing occasional smoke for some effect. Soon we were descending and lining up with the runway. Everything was so undramatic. Very unlike the usual commercial jets that take hours to taxi and prepare for take off and follow similar procedures for landing, regarding altitudes and rate of descent. One second we were many hundreds of feet in the air and next second we almost touching the ground, the grass rather. The approach was undramatic again and I held on to my camera recording the whole sequence. I could feel some bounces during touch down but I never really cared. My camera was still running while we were taxiing. I was still very excited even after coming to a rest and getting ready to get off the wonderful ride.
After experiencing the 5 minutes of ups and downs and swerving and maneuvering, I suddenly felt the ground a little too stationary. First I bumped my head into the upper wing on the biplane configuration while getting down. Later I found I wasn't walking straight and steady. There was a little disorienting feeling while walking. So all the weird feelings came to me on the ground, not while in the air. Maybe that's a hint that I belong in the air..! I wish... After giving some big handshakes and thank yous, we finally headed out.
Anyway, I also noticed my lips were stuck on a wide smile even 10 minutes after it was all over. We went to a gas station to buy an energy drink because of all the dehydrating heat around. In my case, I used it to calm me down. I was so excited that the energy drink actually brought my activity/adrenaline levels a little lower. I finally settled down in the passenger seat still thinking about those 5 minutes.
After getting back, we had dinner and it was time for me to end the day. Clearly, I wasn't ready to end it. I knew I'd have trouble sleeping and it was true. Jim dropped me home and I couldn't hold my excitement narrating all the events of the day. After spending hours going through the photos and videos and showing them to friends, uploading them on social networks, I managed to settle down to sleep. That was when I realised how tired I actually was and ended up sleeping like a log..
