Knowing that eventually I would have to get up in a plane, I decided to take agressive action to conquer my fear of hights and flying. I worked at a hotel near a major airport and got the amazing opportunity to fly the local airline's flight simulator for 4 hours.

My next step was to go up in a cesna to get past this fear of both flying and heights.

A bright sunny morning I headed north towards the smaller local airport where I had booked a 30 min cesna tranining flight. I tend to let the nerves manifest their fears in my stomach, but I had to eat something. I nibbled on an apple to satisfy my hunger pains but not to get too much into my stomach in case I got sick.

The first few minutes when I got to the airport flew by quickly (no pun intended) and before I knew it I was on the cesna with the pilot who was going to take me up on this introductory flight. I confessed to him why I was doing this flight and I think I acutally made him nervous...poor guy.

On take off, I think I made my pilot deaf due to screaming into the microphone attached to my earphones. I know if anyone else was listening they had to be laughing. Once off the ground I calmed a bit, and then he let me fly. WOW, flying a plane was beyond anything I expected. I was ok with turning right because it mean I wasn't going any higher, the left turns meant I would go just a few feat higher as I turned. I was so nervous, clutching the yolks so tightly I went higher than I thought I would and the pilot was quick to point that out.

On landing it was going smoothly until he took over, once I relinquished control of the plane to the pilot, my stomach also lost control. Luckily he reminded me many times where that handy little bag was. Even though I nibbled on a quarter of an apple, much more than that filled that tiny little bag.

With both embarassment and gratitue I thanked the pilot for his patience and the experience.

12 years later, I bought a gift card for my boyfriend to experience the censa flight with me as a passenger to record the event. Hopefully one day we will book and go up on our flight.

Needless to say, I love flying & planes now, I have been in the cockpit a few times on smaller aircraft flights (taking off over the Rio Grand in the Co-pilot's seat was amazing) one day hope to fly in the A380 or even get my own pilots license just for fun.