For a long time I had hinted that, if Liz should want to get me something special sometime, a helicopter might be just the thing. However, when she was shopping for helicopters, she realized that the price range was $200,000+ for a good one. So she decided to do the next best thing and got me an introductory flight at Sun Aero Helicopters in Lansing, IL. She gave me the certificate as a wedding present. Finally, after holding onto it for more than a year, I scheduled a time for a flight. So last Saturday we fought through Labor day traffic on the worst Chicago expressway to get to Lansing Municipal Airport.All my helicopter experience before was limited to a few hours logged on Microsoft Flight Simulator and once "flying" the Black Hawk simulator at Fort Riley. So I knew in theory what the cyclic and collective controls did, but I didn't have any real practice.
The introductory flight was fun. My instructor let me take each of the controls, one at a time and then we flew around for a little bit. Not too long, but enough to get some feel for it. I secretly hoped I would be the one remarkable prodigy who could hover on the first try, but no. Still she said I "did better than most people the first time" so I will accept that encouragement, especially since I'll never know the truth about those "other people." Overall it was a wonderful experience and if I should ever come into a very large sum of money, I might pursue it further.
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