Mayday, Mayday

I flew an airplane today. It was really cool. My brother-in-law is a pilot, and owns a flying service, and my sister just quit her job to go to work for him. I stayed at their house last night and went out to the airport to hang out for a while after I did some Christmas shopping earlier in the day. I only anticipated staying there for about an hour or so, but then we had the following exchange:

Him: "Do you want to go flying today?"
Me: "Of course I do."
Him: "Ok, you'll just have to wait until this plane comes back and I'll have one of my instructors take you up."
Me: "Ok, as long as you're sure."
Him: "It'll be fine."

So I hung around for about another hour, then he had one of his guys take me up. He walked me through the pre-flight check list and kind of showed me how stuff works (meaning I watched while he did everything). Then it was time to get in the plane. He started it up and explained to me how it was going to work, then we took off and I got to fly all around the valley. There's really not a whole lot to it, I think a three year old could manage it once the plane is in the air, but it was an amazing feeling looking down at the valley and all the little buildings and cars.

The pilot who had just returned with the plane was complaining about the autopilot not working properly, so he showed me how that worked and how to make the plane follow the GPS unit. Really cool stuff. We stayed in the air for about 45 minutes (15 minutes longer than the standard intro flight because my brother-in-law is cool like that) and then he walked me through the landing. It's surprisingly not that scary when you know there is someone else who can take over the controls at any moment (and he did).

It was a beautiful day. Apparently one of the few where there wasn't any inversion here in the valley so we could actually see for quite some distance. I'm totally hooked, now I want to get my pilot's license. There's just that little matter of coming up with the $6000 to do so.

Flying Post 9-11

I made it through airport security in record times both when I was leaving town this weekend and when I was flying back. Both times I arrived at the airport about an hour and twenty minutes before my flight, and both times I was sitting at the gate waiting to board within about ten minutes. I wish I knew how to time it better though, especially since on the way back that meant I could have spent another hour with my kids. Of course, I suppose it would work the opposite way if I were to push my luck and I'd end up missing my plane.

As I was undressing to go through the metal detector without setting off any alarms I couldn't help but think that it probably wasn't doing a whole lot to prevent another terrorist attack. In reality, I think that all of these things have been put into place so that everyone will think that the government is doing something. I think the response to Hurricane Katrina has shown otherwise. Don't you think that if there is going to be another major attack that they are going to go with something that we aren't expecting? I know that the levees that broke in New Orleans did so because of the hurricane, but something along those lines is exactly what I would expect the terrorists to try next. Imagine that the levees in New Orleans had been bombed instead, would the results have been any less drastic? I think the death toll would have been about the same, but somehow I think the government would have responded a lot quicker in that scenario.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the answers are, or where exactly the resources ought to be placed. There certainly aren't enough of them to go around to prepare for everything that could possibly be thrown our way. I'm hoping that we won't see another terrorist attack like the one on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but I'm guessing that Al-Qaida isn't going to stop trying to come up with new ways to get us. I'm just not sure that installing a few extra metal detectors is going to be enough to prevent them from being successful. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I'm the jerk on the plane

I flew to Salt Lake City from Vegas last night as I had wedding to go to today at Temple Square. I've been sick the past few days with a cough that's been getting progressively worse and moved down into my chest. However, I already paid for the ticket and it was non-refundable so I wasn't about to take a loss on it. Especially since I had already rescheduled the flight once before and had to pay a $50 fee to the airline because of it. Instead of being a nice guy, and staying home so as not to get everyone sick, I took a double dose of my cough suppressant and had a friend drop me off at the airport. Luckily this strategy paid off, and I was able to make it through the entire flight without any violent fits of coughing. I know I ran the risk of making the people I was sitting next to sick, but at least this way if they come down with it they won't be able to pinpoint me and curse my name, even if I was the jerk that gave it to them.