I had three lives and an airplane in my hands. I was sitting in front of the instrumentation panel and felt glorious. I realized there will never be anything that could compare to being hundreds of feet up in the air, in a device invented in 1903. I had a loud buzz in my ears, partly muffled by Bose headphones. I was sitting next to my dad in the cockpit of a Maule Aircraft.

Whenever my dad told me to do so, I’d turn left by turning the control wheel as if it were a car, and the ailerons moved the wings in the opposite direction. Or I’d turn right. Whenever he told me so, I’d pull back on the yoke and the nose of the plane glided up. Whenever I pushed down a little bit, the nose dove down. At the moment, it was hard to believe that one could do these astonishing things!

“You’re flying”, my dad said. “I’m flying” I confirmed, with a goofy smile capturing the moment for me. There was peace all over despite the engine running, there was beauty. It was God’s creation beneath me, making me realize why my dad chose to fly planes for a living. I was up in the air! Soaring, floating, all on my own. Why hadn’t I done this before? I could see minuscule swimming pools, a wide river, the runway, buildings, and homes all over.

My dad then told me to hold the throttle while he spoke to the tower over the radio. We were set to do a touch and go, where we pretend we’re landing but take off again as soon as the landing gear is a few feet away from the ground, it was amazing. And so I waveringly did as he said, managing to have the aircrafts wheels touch the runway and immediately takeoff again. It was amazing. It was exactly like playing a flight simulator. It took great focus and concentration, but with good coordination, and a bit of relaxation, flying was mind-blowing.
It was one of those simple yet complex maneuvers in life, I realized. As we were climbing up in the sky again, I started really thinking about every step I was doing to keep the machine up in the air. It is those moments that take your breath away that life is measured by, I thought as I carefully steered three lives and an airplane back to the ground. These experiences expand your view of recreation and profession possibilities in life.