When Bryan was in the Navy he worked on an aircraft carrier, and part of his job was performing the final checks before the aircraft took off. Ever since then he's had aspirations of flying a plane.
We live near several private airports, and in between DFW and a military airport as well, so we see planes flying overhead all the time. Every time he sees a small aircraft he asks me "when are you going to take me flying?" to which I respond with "one of these days." It's like clockwork.
Well, last week I secretly (and very much so on a whim) signed him up for a flight lesson, and on Saturday he got to fly a plane.
He did a couple of hours of instruction and simulation, and then we took off from Addison Airport. We flew over a large portion of the metroplex (our house, even!) and then we did a touch and go at Alliance Airport, and flew back to Addison.
The plane was a little 4 passenger, single engine Cessna, and I'm not going to lie, when we were making our way from the hangar to the runway with the windows in the cabin open, I got a little nervous. Takeoff was pretty brutal, and I was practicing my yoga breath for the first few minutes, but after we were in the air for awhile I was mesmerized by what was going on. It was surreal, and I felt really lucky to be able to give Bryan such an amazing gift.
I took a lot of photos, and if you're interested in checking them out you can do so here. The vast difference in landscape from the city to the country is really neat, and well, Texas is just beautiful. There's everything from a sea of rooftops, to green pastures speckled with cows, The Dallas skyline, and even a few pics of the Texas Motor Speedway.
Happy Monday, guys! Go do something nice for someone you love today. It feels goood. :]