I got high...

Matt: It was a hot day in Dubai, with temperatures reaching 38 to 40 degrees, the humidity was right up there too and there was virtually no wind, normally no wind would have been a bad thing but today.. it's Good!!

It maybe 3 weeks late, but for my birthday treat from Cris, she let me drive north to Um Al Quwain...fun!! you might think.. but once there I donned my headset, clambered into the cockpit and took to the skies!! I flew a Utility FH9 prop, fixed wing!! Wicked!!

From entering the cockpit to climbing out at the end the pilot let me do just about everything.. I ruddered the plane during taxiing down the airfield and I even took off, as soon as we hit 80kph I pulled up on the stick and took us soaring in to the air. We climbed to around 1000 feet and cruised around the Ras Al Khaima skies. Cris was taken up in another craft shortly after I took off. We could chat to each other on the radios and we flew in tandem at one point.

The slightest movement of the control stick had a dramatic effect on these little craft, and the rudder would slew you also. Banking steeply was pretty awesome, my pilot took over at one point to perform a sharp maneuver that bought us round 180 to pull up to Cris's 6. You can really feel the Gs when pulling hard on the stick.

The noise was immense outside the headset, you really do need them that is until the pilot say things like, you're doing really well - you can attempt the landing!! What the???? I turn to look at him - he's serious! "Ok - if you're confident, I'm game!" I said, please bare in mind that I have only ever flown a plane in MS FlightSim 2004 - and i did that pretty badly. But what the hell, the dual control are right there - what can go wrong? right?...

Thankfully, nothing! My approach was a little erratic as the slightest correction sent me way off course, but as I suspected my instructor confidently had a grip on his controls just in case. Left to me - I'm sure I would have got us down on the tarmac, it just would have been a little messy and there would have been incident reports and transporting the body costs ya-de-yah-de-yahh. So thankfully he took most of 70% control and guided us in beautifully.. What a buzz...

Only had the mobile on me - but click here for the pics. :) Thanks Crissy - Next stop a boeing!!! x