Come fly with me

For LOML's birthday present, I booked him a session in a small plane with a pilot (a friend of a friend). LOML has always loved anything to do with aviation and is an obsessive player of flight simulations, so he was really excited at the opportunity to go up in a Navion (this particular one was made in 1946). We started off with a touch-and-go (landing and taking off in rapid succession), and then a cruise around. LOML took the controls for a while to do an 18 degree turn, a 60 degree turn and then a 45 degree turn (this last one was slightly nervewracking), and the pilot who took us up performed a wing-over manouevre, too - a drop in altitude combined with a bank, and I'm probably getting the terminology all wrong. It was great fun. LOML also took charge of an ISL descent, using only the instruments (rather than air traffic control) and took the plane almost all the way down to the runway. Just fantastic.




Our plane.

In-joke for myself.

Pre-flight face.

The runway.



Views of the lake.



LOML in charge of the aircraft.

Slightly more worried during-flight face.



In-flight views.




Post-flight pancakes!