Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog

Flying to Johannesburg the other day, I had my first aborted take-off ever – and it happened to be also the first time I was capturing the take-off on film (sorry, I ended up wiping the footage to capture more photos instead!)

It got me thinking, though, about my own experience with flying and my relatively newfound passion for the experience. I don't think I'd say I was ever terrified of flying, but I wouldn't hesitate to categorize myself as scared whenever some bumps would come about during my journey.

When we arrived back at a stand to have the engineers check out the indication warning (which had since cleared), the pilot popped down to introduce himself and have a chat about the problem (a sensor that detected that a access door to the belly of our 747 was open, even though it wasn’t). And in my mind, I found myself remembering the first moment when I was amazed by these machines, and it was in a company of a captain just like the one shaking my hand...

My dad, you see, was an avid collector of points during his own travels. My rabid fascination with loyalty programs today would make him proud, I'm sure, and the experiences I've been able to have thanks to the many points accumulated from my busy travel schedule are something I'm thankful for every day. He saved up points from dozens of business trips to Atlanta, where his company was headquartered, and conferences all over the continent that he visited in his marketing and sales position for NCR, a major retail technology company. Enough points that we were able to take a family vacation to Vancouver on a massive 747-400, in business class, and from my vague recollection, we were amongst the only guests seated in the upper deck that day. Once we were in flight, he arranged for us to visit the flight deck, where the captain enthusiastically gave us a tour of the cockpit and showed us all the levers and switches and dials that controlled the powerful machine. With me on his lap, came the moment I’ll never forget: He held my hand in his and reached for a dial that adjusted the level of the aircraft, and slowly turned it a few notches to the right – we immediately observed the plane gracefully veer right, ever so gently, and then we adjusted it back. Wow! I was entranced by this amazing machine, but it was time to go back to our seats and let the pilot and first officer get us to the west coast. Someday soon, I'll be ready to take a course and try my hand at flying for the fun of it - but until then, I'll trust the pilots to do that for me.

From 32,000 feet,

Mike