So, taking advantage of summer days; I had my brother visiting me for a couple of weeks and I thought it would be cool to go and make some practicing hours with him, or better said I wanted to show off 😎
After a few cancellations due weather conditions, we finally got a green light. So we got ready… we had breakfast and well, kind of ate too much. Usually I avoid eating when I know I’ll get too anxious, just to avoid discomfort. Though, this time I forgot.
We finally got to the airport; everything was familiar to me by now, but I noticed that it wasn’t the same for my brother, which is normal. Is never the same to be a simple passenger than to see how to take the craft out of hangar from A-Z I guess… this just reminds me that my perspective as passenger has also changed. See, a couple weeks ago I was in this flight from Brussels to Lisbon, and I noticed that I had a different understanding of the situation. I remember before simply waiting for takeoff and probably just nagging (inside, never out loud 😇); this time I was somehow experiencing the total process of the aircraft and even knew every step of the way. The takeoff felt totally different because I knew the whole processing of it.
Let’s get back to the practice day with my brother as passenger… once we got ready for takeoff the captain told me that it was time for me to do so and I PANICKED 😳😳, I literally freaked out! I wasn’t expecting that at all, but I had to do it at some point. The instructor was there for me obviously but omG … my stomach didn’t take it lightly. Anyways, I pulled that yoke and took off. Oh boy, I started thinking that my brother was on board and then I got even more scared; cause one thing is to mess it up but another thing is to take my brother down with me… not like I was planning to but I hope you get my point…See, the captain/instructor was there so honestly there was nothing to worry about, but I couldn’t help it and then I though “stupid breakfast, why did I eat if I know I shouldn’t???” too late… I felt the craft pulling away from the ground and we started ascending to the right height; I felt as I was dying or so haha 😰… once we got to the right level, I tried to calm down but I really couldn’t put myself together and instead of showing off I felt discomposed haha😵… with so much shame I told my instructor to take the control and to please go back… so we did it.
Once we landed I was somehow upset to myself; and my brother who didn’t get scared at all, was very supportive of me and at the end of the day we both laughed.😒😂 Practice was successful but my little episode was hilarious.
In this Instagram post you can see a bit the TakeOff. 😬 (Filmed by my brother Ben).
LIDIA AVILES 