LvPilot
Pre-Flight
Ridiculous … I cannot believe that printed this article in our local newspaper:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-19-Mon-2007/living/12411148.html
Here is a reprint if you can’t access the link, but you’ll be missing the accompanying videos:
My speed is 55 knots and I'm running out of Runway 12R. It's time for me to nudge the yoke back and take this journey three-dimensional.
"Here we go!" shouts Mario Bonaventura, flight instructor for West Air Aviation at the North Las Vegas Airport.
There are two yokes, or steering wheels, side by side like in a driver's ed car. But Bonaventura isn't touching his. The only hands in control of this aircraft are baboon-hairy and trembling.
As the plane noses up, Bonaventura slaps my yoke forward, decreasing our angle of climb.
"A little too steep!" he yells over the leaf-blower engine noise.
I'm flying with no training, by the way. I haven't even brushed up on my Microsoft Flight Simulator program.
"You learn by doing," Bonaventura said earlier. "It's best for first-time pilots to fly by the seat of their pants."
I do have some training. I've piloted every flight I've ever taken -- via the arm rests I take off and land with. Actually being in control, I figured, might offset the jitters I get as a passenger.
I figured wrong. Gusts of 20 mph are whipping us from the southwest due to a low-pressure system that's raining on nearby mountain ranges.
"It's more fun when it's bumpy!" Bonaventura screams.
Bumpy? This is "bumpy" like Michael Jackson is "eccentric." The cabin feels like a snow globe that a giant hand is trying to make snow.
"Don't worry," Bonaventura says. "This is nothing!"
Incidentally, Bonaventura has 500 hours of flight time.
"That's very little," he admitted earlier, "but I'm one of the most senior guys now."
Did I mention that Bonaventura is 21 years old? His flight time represents 0.27 percent of his entire lifespan.
"You need to climb!" he yells. He grabs his yoke, flinging my body skyward without my spleen.
"Whoa!"
That's me, in case you can't guess. Seven degrees nose up sounds gradual, but the seat of the pants I'm flying by is dangerously close to being stained.
Wait. I haven't even told you about the plane yet. It's a four-seat, single-engine Cessna 172, which was also my blood pressure when I spotted it in the field behind West Air. This $80,000 Costco shopping cart with wings was undoubtedly chosen for this mission because it's the fleet's most expendable.
"Don't worry," Bonaventura said, explaining that all planes must pass inspection after 100 hours of flight time.
The thought occurs to me that this plane might not have seen any flight time since running sacks of cash out of town for Tony "The Ant" Spilotro's crew. More flip switches grace its instrument panel than did my grandparents' hi-fi set. (The dash commands an undue amount of my attention at first, because I can't see over it.)
"It's an old-ass plane," Bonaventura admitted after retrieving a pillow for me to sit on.
Later, I discover that the airplane was manufactured in 1978, seven years before the airplane instructor was.
"Whoa!"
Me again. At 5,500 feet above sea level, Bonaventura decides to make us lurch violently left and right.
"I wanted to show you how the rudder pedals work," he says, laughing.
Cessnas were the small planes that carried R&B singer Aaliyah, New York Yankees captain Thurman Munson and boxing champ Rocky Marciano to their fiery deaths. I'm just saying.
"I like freaking you out!" Bonaventura yells.
My first instinct is to knock this wiseguy unconscious. He looks skinny enough to take. My second instinct is to realize how stupid my first instinct is, considering who would have to land the plane.
"Come on, I just took a 12-year-old boy up and he loved it," Bonaventura says.
Two of West Air's 10 instructors are leaving the company next week, since the 1,000-hour marker qualifies them to fly bigger planes.
Bonaventura dreams of being an airline pilot, too. And after this flight, he'll be 40 minutes closer.
"I knew I wanted to fly when I was a kid and went to the airport," said the Las Vegas native, who flew his first solo flight at age 16. "Seeing a big 747 and knowing that that thing is gonna go super fast, way up in the air."
As of 2005, there were 646,321 licensed and active pilots in the U.S., according to the FAA. Most fly recreationally, but 43 percent make their living in the air, earning $22,000 to $160,000 a year. They usually start as co-pilots on smaller airlines.
The mountain in front of us now takes up too much windshield to continue ignoring. It could be Mount Potosi. That is where a plane carrying Carole Lombard and 21 others crashed and exploded in 1942, killing all on board. According to reports, the pilot was in the back chatting with the movie star, leaving his less-experienced co-pilot to fly in instrument conditions.
"I'll check what mountain that is for you," Bonaventura says, leaving his own less-experienced co-pilot to fly as he unfolds a map and scans it with his eyes for at least 10 seconds.
This is a good time to explain that our propensity to avoid colliding with stuff (birds, other planes, mountains) is predicated on our ability to see said stuff coming. Planes as small as ours don't fly by radar.
In order to accurately communicate the depth of my concern over this matter, I unleash a string of expletives Bonaventura has only been legal to hear without a parent or guardian for the last four years.
In seeming retaliation, Bonaventura changes course by dipping us 45 degrees to the right, accomplishing a full U-turn in less than a minute.
"Now show him what it's like to bank to the left!" shouts Review-Journal photographer Gary Thompson. Bonaventura complies. (OK, fine. So everyone else at the R-J is braver than the adventure writer.)
"We're gonna do a couple of more turns and some steep dives!" Bonaventura announces.
At this point, I don't know which is screaming louder, the leaf-blower engine or me.
"Or we can turn and go back because you're a wuss," Bonaventura responds.
As we angle toward the distant runway, the plane suddenly dips like the Desperado roller coaster at Buffalo Bill's. It wasn't Bonaventura's doing.
"Wind shear!" he exclaims, all excited. He doesn't add "don't worry" this time. Instead, he announces: "This is gonna be a crazy landing!"
Three minutes transpire in which I regret not having led a religious life. Then Bonaventura touches down. But the direction we're moving and the direction we're facing do not entirely coincide. The wheels skid for 40 feet before catching.
My official flight time is 24 minutes. It's about half the length of the average demo flight, although it will provide a lifetime of pretending I was brave once.
The first thing I do when we stop is kiss the ground.
The second is resolve to stop bugging Nellis Air Force Base to let me fly a fighter jet.
Watch video of Levitan's flight at www.reviewjournal.com/video/fearandloafing.html. Fear and Loafing runs on Mondays in the Living section. Levitan's previous adventures are posted at fearandloafing.com.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-19-Mon-2007/living/12411148.html
Here is a reprint if you can’t access the link, but you’ll be missing the accompanying videos:
JUST PLANE STUPID: The Wrong Stuff
My speed is 55 knots and I'm running out of Runway 12R. It's time for me to nudge the yoke back and take this journey three-dimensional.
"Here we go!" shouts Mario Bonaventura, flight instructor for West Air Aviation at the North Las Vegas Airport.
There are two yokes, or steering wheels, side by side like in a driver's ed car. But Bonaventura isn't touching his. The only hands in control of this aircraft are baboon-hairy and trembling.
As the plane noses up, Bonaventura slaps my yoke forward, decreasing our angle of climb.
"A little too steep!" he yells over the leaf-blower engine noise.
I'm flying with no training, by the way. I haven't even brushed up on my Microsoft Flight Simulator program.
"You learn by doing," Bonaventura said earlier. "It's best for first-time pilots to fly by the seat of their pants."
I do have some training. I've piloted every flight I've ever taken -- via the arm rests I take off and land with. Actually being in control, I figured, might offset the jitters I get as a passenger.
I figured wrong. Gusts of 20 mph are whipping us from the southwest due to a low-pressure system that's raining on nearby mountain ranges.
"It's more fun when it's bumpy!" Bonaventura screams.
Bumpy? This is "bumpy" like Michael Jackson is "eccentric." The cabin feels like a snow globe that a giant hand is trying to make snow.
"Don't worry," Bonaventura says. "This is nothing!"
Incidentally, Bonaventura has 500 hours of flight time.
"That's very little," he admitted earlier, "but I'm one of the most senior guys now."
Did I mention that Bonaventura is 21 years old? His flight time represents 0.27 percent of his entire lifespan.
"You need to climb!" he yells. He grabs his yoke, flinging my body skyward without my spleen.
"Whoa!"
That's me, in case you can't guess. Seven degrees nose up sounds gradual, but the seat of the pants I'm flying by is dangerously close to being stained.
Wait. I haven't even told you about the plane yet. It's a four-seat, single-engine Cessna 172, which was also my blood pressure when I spotted it in the field behind West Air. This $80,000 Costco shopping cart with wings was undoubtedly chosen for this mission because it's the fleet's most expendable.
"Don't worry," Bonaventura said, explaining that all planes must pass inspection after 100 hours of flight time.
The thought occurs to me that this plane might not have seen any flight time since running sacks of cash out of town for Tony "The Ant" Spilotro's crew. More flip switches grace its instrument panel than did my grandparents' hi-fi set. (The dash commands an undue amount of my attention at first, because I can't see over it.)
"It's an old-ass plane," Bonaventura admitted after retrieving a pillow for me to sit on.
Later, I discover that the airplane was manufactured in 1978, seven years before the airplane instructor was.
"Whoa!"
Me again. At 5,500 feet above sea level, Bonaventura decides to make us lurch violently left and right.
"I wanted to show you how the rudder pedals work," he says, laughing.
Cessnas were the small planes that carried R&B singer Aaliyah, New York Yankees captain Thurman Munson and boxing champ Rocky Marciano to their fiery deaths. I'm just saying.
"I like freaking you out!" Bonaventura yells.
My first instinct is to knock this wiseguy unconscious. He looks skinny enough to take. My second instinct is to realize how stupid my first instinct is, considering who would have to land the plane.
"Come on, I just took a 12-year-old boy up and he loved it," Bonaventura says.
Two of West Air's 10 instructors are leaving the company next week, since the 1,000-hour marker qualifies them to fly bigger planes.
Bonaventura dreams of being an airline pilot, too. And after this flight, he'll be 40 minutes closer.
"I knew I wanted to fly when I was a kid and went to the airport," said the Las Vegas native, who flew his first solo flight at age 16. "Seeing a big 747 and knowing that that thing is gonna go super fast, way up in the air."
As of 2005, there were 646,321 licensed and active pilots in the U.S., according to the FAA. Most fly recreationally, but 43 percent make their living in the air, earning $22,000 to $160,000 a year. They usually start as co-pilots on smaller airlines.
The mountain in front of us now takes up too much windshield to continue ignoring. It could be Mount Potosi. That is where a plane carrying Carole Lombard and 21 others crashed and exploded in 1942, killing all on board. According to reports, the pilot was in the back chatting with the movie star, leaving his less-experienced co-pilot to fly in instrument conditions.
"I'll check what mountain that is for you," Bonaventura says, leaving his own less-experienced co-pilot to fly as he unfolds a map and scans it with his eyes for at least 10 seconds.
This is a good time to explain that our propensity to avoid colliding with stuff (birds, other planes, mountains) is predicated on our ability to see said stuff coming. Planes as small as ours don't fly by radar.
In order to accurately communicate the depth of my concern over this matter, I unleash a string of expletives Bonaventura has only been legal to hear without a parent or guardian for the last four years.
In seeming retaliation, Bonaventura changes course by dipping us 45 degrees to the right, accomplishing a full U-turn in less than a minute.
"Now show him what it's like to bank to the left!" shouts Review-Journal photographer Gary Thompson. Bonaventura complies. (OK, fine. So everyone else at the R-J is braver than the adventure writer.)
"We're gonna do a couple of more turns and some steep dives!" Bonaventura announces.
At this point, I don't know which is screaming louder, the leaf-blower engine or me.
"Or we can turn and go back because you're a wuss," Bonaventura responds.
As we angle toward the distant runway, the plane suddenly dips like the Desperado roller coaster at Buffalo Bill's. It wasn't Bonaventura's doing.
"Wind shear!" he exclaims, all excited. He doesn't add "don't worry" this time. Instead, he announces: "This is gonna be a crazy landing!"
Three minutes transpire in which I regret not having led a religious life. Then Bonaventura touches down. But the direction we're moving and the direction we're facing do not entirely coincide. The wheels skid for 40 feet before catching.
My official flight time is 24 minutes. It's about half the length of the average demo flight, although it will provide a lifetime of pretending I was brave once.
The first thing I do when we stop is kiss the ground.
The second is resolve to stop bugging Nellis Air Force Base to let me fly a fighter jet.
Watch video of Levitan's flight at www.reviewjournal.com/video/fearandloafing.html. Fear and Loafing runs on Mondays in the Living section. Levitan's previous adventures are posted at fearandloafing.com.
