I’ve always said that “I don’t mind flying, but landing always makes me nervous”. But when I said that to the pilot on this flight, I received the somewhat discomforting response “yeah… me too.” Nonetheless, I was stoked to have this opportunity to take some aerial photos for a client and wasn’t going to let some pilot humour (you were joking…right?) deter me. Speaking of pilot humour, I won’t tell you the response I got when I asked where the bathroom was on his Cessna.
In all seriousness, I knew I was in great hands and had no worries at all (except for the fact that there were no opening windows so I had to shoot through tinted glass!). It wasn’t my first time in a small plane like this, and the last time was flying over the Rocky Mountains, so I figured worst case scenario would be a rocky landing in a farmer’s field in The County. Right?
Looking at this photo after the fact, it sure looks like he’s making sure the propeller was on straight, but I know better. After a safety check and briefing we were up up and away.
I’ve never been airsick, but I got close on this flight from Stirling Airport, over Trenton and down to Ameliasburgh and back again. As a result, I learned a very valuable life lesson: Don’t spend the flight looking at the back of your camera making sure your photos are in focus, if you don’t want to puke in your camera bag. Especially when you hear the pilot say “OK, I’m banking hard left now”. When the pilot of a Cessna says something like that, look up… always look up…. always…
Plus, if you spend the whole flight taking pictures and then looking at the back of your camera, you don’t get to see the amazing view! You just don’t get the same appreciation for the landscape and the scale of things when you’re driving down the highway, that’s for sure. We had a great evening for flying, it was calm and clear and the view was astounding!
Now, back to that landing… What’s there to be nervous about?
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