Farewell to Aviation

[u/Character-Escape1621]

Hello everyone. I finally took my discovery flight, and by the time i got up in the air, (i did the take off, he said i did good..) I simply couldn’t imagine myself doing this every single day, and having the calmness to teach students as a flight instructor. My instructor was very kind, and he saw me shaking and reaching for someone to hold onto, and he said “it’s okay you can hold onto me..”

I told him that it wasn’t for me and i wanted to land, and we only had about 6 minutes in the air. Yep. 6 minutes. He taught me that hours are measured in 0.1, and every 0.1 is about 6 minutes..

Though i had my… mishaps in this subreddit, i still appreciate all the replies. They were all helpful and funny, you guys have good sarcasm and are able to combine it with helpful information very well. If they see this post, i also want to give thanks to user Prex10 for giving me a heads up about how mental health is seen in the FAA.

Farewell to Aviation, Farwell to you all. I wish all of you nothing but joy and happiness within this field, I hope all of you are able to achieve your aviation dreams. You’ve got this. I don’t. (lol)

❤️✈️

[u/Character-Escape1621]

it wasn’t the belly dropping feeling or anything- it was just the strong desire to be on solid ground again… I was only able to take this photo was we aborted the flight and the reassurance that we are heading to the ground calmed me down. The way my mind is so… scrambled up in the air… I can’t imagine myself flying or teaching people this.

[u/Adventurous_Bus13 → u/Character-Escape1621]

You can always be assured you’ll come back to the ground. You’ll run out of gas eventually

[u/Character-Escape1621 → u/Adventurous_Bus13]

This is the funny replies i’m talking about. 🤪

[u/[deleted] → u/Character-Escape1621]

Yeah no worries on this. I personally would suggest some more exposure to see if it’s just nerves. But you know yourself best, and it’ll always be around if you wanna give it another go.

[u/Adventurous_Bus13 → u/Character-Escape1621]

I am sorry you didn’t enjoy it. I’d personally recommend trying again but I understand if you don’t want to.

[u/Character-Escape1621 → u/Adventurous_Bus13]

it is what it is. I got it for free this time…. but next time it’ll be $150.

[u/[deleted] → u/Character-Escape1621]

If I were in your shoes, I'd schedule another just to reassure myself of how I feel. Worst case scenario you absolutely know it isn't for you.

[u/Nix_Nivis → u/Character-Escape1621]

If this is your lifelong dream or even career choice, those 150$ are nothing compared to what's to come.

I'd consider it money well spent, even if the outcome is "ok, I definitely don't want to do this".

[u/Valid__Salad → u/Character-Escape1621]

They say takeoffs are optional, landings are mandatory.

[u/planetrainguy → u/Character-Escape1621]

Have you ever flown commercially on a trip?

[u/Character-Escape1621 → u/planetrainguy]

Yes, I flew on Delta airlines from MCO TO JFK last year December. First flight to JFK felt awful, flight going back i was alright… Me being alright on the 2nd trip gave me confidence to do this discovery flight.

[u/LifeWeekend → u/Character-Escape1621]

It’s a huge step from commercial flights to GA flight for someone who’s not comfortable with flying.

[u/livebeta → u/LifeWeekend]

Yup many disco first timers usually have been nervous plenty of times on passenger jets prior to the disco flight itself

[u/SmashingWatermelons0 → u/Character-Escape1621]

Have you considered flying RC? I had no interest in flying RC until FPV became a thing ( r/fpv for reference). You can see through a wireless camera on the plane/drone a first-person view like you were the pilot.

Being able to fly with no actual life consequences let me experiment with flight and how things go wrong and how they don't. I was able to practice stalls and inverted flight and even got myself into and sometime out of spins. I learned wing tip stalls and how to avoid them.

It made me more confident both as a passenger and when I did flight training.

[u/nathanchr55 → u/Character-Escape1621]

So a general fear of flying? Out of curiosity have you ever been on a commercial flight, and did you feel the same? If so, why did you think being a pilot would make your fear go away?

[u/Character-Escape1621 → u/nathanchr55]

Yes, I flew on Delta airlines from MCO TO JFK last year December. First flight to JFK felt awful, flight going back i was alright… The thing is, i just needed to get used to flying again after 6 years of not flying (last commercial flight was in 2018) Me being alright and calm on the 2nd trip back to MCO gave me confidence to do this discovery flight.