[cate]

Today was my first Real Flight and I completely screwed up. On the ground the air was perfectly calm but once we were airbourne there was a lot of turbulence.

If I have one fear about flying, it is turbulence. I want the flight to feel smooth as a monorail. I want all concepts of weather to vanish for the two hours I am occupying Houston Air Space.

The plane (Cessna 172 Skyhawk) felt like a piece of popcorn in a blender. We were being bounced all over the place. The instructor was very good about it, trying to override my sudden fear of flying with physics. See, he said, the sun is coming out and warming up chunks of flat land and since hot air rises, we feel it as a bump when we fly through this column of hot, unstable air.

Thanks Newton, shut up and fly, wouldya?

I didn't say that. I wanted to but didn't. Instead I just gripped the yoke and put on my best Amelia face and told him not to take his hands away from his controls, to let me fly but make sure he could take it if we hit more turbulence.

Once we were on the ground I said, Okay let's schedule my next flight and he actually looked surprised.

Oh God. Just open a vein.

Yes really, I said, and once inside, we scheduled the next three sessions. They're scheduled for early in the day before the sun has time to heat up huge chunks of open land and create those blasted columns of air.

Meantime I am completely humiliated and want to explain to him that I'm not afraid to fly. Honest. I can fly just fine, I just hate turbulance.

I can guess his reply though, and this is why I keep my mouth shut: Hon, turbulence is an unescapable aspect of flying.