By Michael E.C. Gery
- 1: Introduction
- 2: Preparing for Takeoff
- 3: Taking Flight
- 4: How to Be a Pilot
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On this 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers work on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, I figured it was my duty to fly an airplane. I hoped to feel what Orville Wright felt when he flew that heavier-than-air, motorized aircraft on Dec. 17, 1903, from a Kitty Hawk sand dune.
I arranged to take a flying lesson at First in Flight Aviation, based at the Franklin County Airport (LHZ). The lesson was set up for me by the Be a Pilot program (their motto: “Stop Dreaming. Start Flying.”) If you’re interested, you can do the same thing.
My instructor was an enthusiastic and very knowledgeable young woman named Cheri Dyson. An instructor for nearly three years, Cheri hopes to become a bush pilot, preferably in Africa. I asked her why she flies small airplanes.
“I’d rather fly than drive,” she said. “Plus, it’s fun.”
This was good enough for me. So we looked outside. That’s the first thing you need to do: make sure the weather will let you fly. We checked the computer and radar reports from inside the airport, then looked outside the window. Visibility was 5 miles. Optimum is 6, minimum is 3. We looked at the 2003 Aeronautical Chart published by the N.C. Department of Transportation to plan where we’d fly. We decided to go east toward Bunn, Spring Hope and Momeyer, places I have always wanted to see from the air.
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