My 30th birthday was on 03JUL2011, a Sunday. To celebrate I took a flying lesson the day before, on the Saturday.

The amor and I have birthdays just eight days apart so I arranged for the lesson at Hull Aero Club to be in a four seater Cessna rather than a two seater. Despite the name the aero club is actually in Beverley, over in the East Riding of Yorkshire. We could have done the lesson at Leeds Bradford Airport much closer to home, but the idea of doing it somewhere with less restrictions appealed. Beverley is a quieter, lovely spot and gave us the chance to fly over the coast rather than over a city.

On arrival the gents at HAC were wonderful. Our lesson was stretched from the scheduled sixty minutes to ninety minutes, many thanks to our instructor for doing that. We split the time in two to give us both a chance to try out the controls.

I tend to be more gung-ho so I went first. The instructor does take off, explains the basics of the controls and then just lets you take over. After being shown how to get the plane up and down and read the simpler dials and panels, I was told to spin the plane in a full 360. Which was fun. Then it was off to fly over Flamborough Head and the coast. I was a bit worried when the instructor stopped offering feedback but relaxed when I realised he was actually just enjoying the ride! We had a look at the lighthouse and what the boats were doing, listened in on the radio channel and watched the world go by. I found the basics of flying fun and simple, it really clicked for me. It was a shame to have to head back to the airfield. My landing was a bit sketchy but I could easily improve that.

The amor and I switched seats and, after take off, he took the controls to fly us in the other direction, over Hull and the Humber Bridge. While I ask specific questions about what X does or how do I deal with Y, the amor asks lots of questions about how *everything* works. He was so tense he had white knuckles the whole flight. Afterwards he confessed that he had enjoyed flying… But he preferred being a passenger to being potentially responsible for us all being plunged into the earth in a ball of fire. Funny lad. Anyway, he got to fly us over where he lived when he studied at Hull Uni and landed us safely even though there were three other planes circling the airfield looking to land directly after us. Well done, that man.

I loved flying. It felt relaxing, natural and just ‘right’ I guess. If I could afford to do my license tomorrow, I would. And someday, when it’s realistic financially, ’001. Get a pilot’s license’ is going to be on one of my 101 lists. Not someday maybe. Someday definitely. Until then, the taster will have to suffice. There’s more photos on Flickr.