Milestone: Wife Grin

dhall_polo · #1 06-08-2009, 05:13 PM

A little background...

My wife is no thrill seeker. It took years of persistence to get her into her first small airplane ride with a close friend. With even more patience and persistence, she agreed to let *me* give her a plane ride in my old, faithful Archer. That ride is one we still joke about today. I was so caught up in making sure she was ok, that I forgot to latch the Archer's door. [yes it's on the checklist] We take off, and the cabin is dominated by the loud howling from the winds of the improperly secured door. No problem. Just put in a little slip to help with the wind pressure and lock that door. All she saw was that she was suddenly looking more directly at the ground. That is definitely not right. And there I am reaching for the door latch. Yep, I must be trying to throw her out. About 1/10000th of a second later I realize that plan is not going to work. It's much better, apparently, to help crash an airplane than be thrown from it. A few calm words and no more reaching for the latch restores order to the cockpit. There was no way I was going to land back at the same airport, because that would have been it for the flight. I stopped at a nearby airport, secured the door, and did a little 'splaining about my faux pas with the checklist. Amazingly enough, we actually managed to complete a nice trip to a little romantic getaway.

We made a few more trips over the years. She learned to accept planes, but it was something she could do without. Then, with horror, she witnessed me writing that check for the empennage about four years ago. When I misplace my watch or a set of keys, that amuses her, but now I'm building an airplane that her babies will fly in? If I had set my hair on fire and taken up witchcraft, she'd have been less horrified. From the shock of that moment, we move into the simmering acceptance of the actual build period. Simmering and acceptance don't seem to go together, but the next four years in my house were filled with equal amounts of both. Frankly, I get that. The time and money it takes to build a plane are considerable, and the family most assuredly missed out on a few trips to Europe or the Rockies because of a hunk of metal.

Fast forward to today. He who loses keys wants to take her flying. A "Gennett" day landed on a Sunday. I call it a "Gennett" day when that magical trifecta of low winds, high visibility, and cool temps mix to produce the perfect flying day. I expected Gennett would wait until I had 1000 hours on the RV before she gave it a go, but this past Sunday I got the thumbs up. With assurances that there would be no inverted flight she agreed to go. She was even kind enough to remind me to latch the door before getting my takeoff clearance. "Thank you, honey." On the takeoff roll, you could feel the nervousness, but slowly as we gained altitude her confidence started building, and she had a great time. She even got rather snap-happy with the camera, and we had a nice hour-long flight to nowhere.

Mike S · #2 06-08-2009, 05:27 PM

SUPER.................

DeltaRomeo · #3 06-08-2009, 05:53 PM

Great Great Great Post!!!!

"Then, with horror, she witnessed me writing that check...." I laughed out LOUD when I read that!

b,
d

painless · #4 06-08-2009, 05:56 PM

Lucky man.

scard · #5 06-08-2009, 06:02 PM

Life IS good, isn't it.

Jamie · #6 06-08-2009, 07:45 PM

Don is based at his airport and I met his wife just before this flight. She's pretty nice and I would have to say that Don "married up", if you know what I mean.

All kidding aside, Don that is great and I'm glad she had a great time. I'm looking forward to the day that you we all can drop the kids off and head off somewhere fun.

Gary 40274 · #7 06-09-2009, 07:28 AM

An old sage once told me that it never pays to make your spouse uncomfortable. Looks like you did good in that department this time. When I get back to ATL area in the fall we should connect up and check out how the OP stuff is working.

Gary Specketer
RV10 Flying

Webb · #8 06-09-2009, 08:32 AM

Good experiences lead to it getting better.

My wife and I were on the way to Shreveport in the car. As we drove down the interstate and were approaching the turn off to the airport, I got the...."why don't we take the plane, it's faster". One hour later, we were there.

jbDC9 · #9 06-09-2009, 03:57 PM

RVs can be good for scoring brownie points with the spousal unit as well.

Last week on my wife's birthday I surprised her with a quick getaway trip; I told her to pack an overnight bag and plan on a 1:45 flight, but didn't tell her where. At just around the top-of-descent she figured out it was going to be New Orleans... a bit later we were at the House of Blues in the French Quarter to see her favorite band (Better Than Ezra) play a little rock show. Her reaction? Stunned speechless. All this made possible by the letters R and V.

Here's a drawback to this little trip; how am I gonna top this on her birthday next year?

zspivey · #10 06-09-2009, 04:13 PM

Yes, one should try to keep one's spouse happy in the air.

We had planned a Memorial Day weekend escape to Table Rock Lake near Branson, MO. I had been traveling all week. I landed in MLU after a commercial flight from ATL; checked the weather and found it to be 1200 broken, 1800 overcast and 5 miles visibility. The extended forecast was for a front to move in from Florida over the next few days bringing in low clouds and thunderstorms. We cancelled the rental car and drove the 8 hours instead of flying 1+30. I think I scored points for future flights by quickly cancelling when the weather did not look good.