Lorenzo put on some headphones with a microphone attached and handed me a pair, which I hung around my neck as I watched him prepare for take-off. The number of gauges, dials, and switches in that small cockpit was truly staggering. He told me to put my headphones on before the engine roared to life, and his voice came through clearly as he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Not awful.”
He turned to look at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?” When I nodded, he smiled at me and went back to the controls. He said something to a disembodied voice I assumed came from the airport’s control tower, and then we started to move. I concentrated on deep breathing as I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants.
Normally, I had no problem with flying, but all my experience to date had been in massive airliners. This was another thing entirely. I’d always assumed it would feel exactly like this, precarious and risky, and all we were doing so far was rolling across the tarmac.
I pivoted as much as I could with the seatbelt holding me in place and focused all my attention on Lorenzo. The plane might seem flimsy compared to a 747 but he was rock solid, calm and totally in control. He always seemed like that, but here it was heightened somehow and brought sharply into focus.
We gained speed as we barreled down the runway. It felt rough and shaky—until it didn’t.
All of a sudden, we were airborne. When I turned to look out the windshield, all I could see was blue sky. We climbed steadily for a while, and then Lorenzo brought the plane around in a wide arc. Catalina came into view as we leveled off, and I murmured, “Oh wow.” The island rose steeply out of the gray-blue ocean, culminating in a series of imposing mountain ridges. When I noticed a flat strip at the top of one of the mountains, I said, “Holy shit, is that the runway we just used?” It looked so much more precarious from up here, slicing through the landscape before dropping off sharply at either end.
“It is. Fun fact—it was built by blowing up two mountaintops, then filling in the valley between them with the rubble. A lot of pilots consider it one of their favorite airports.”
“I’m guessing pilots have different criteria than the rest of us for what constitutes a favorite airport.”
He chuckled and said, “You’re right about that. This one’s all about the thrill factor.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t know what that looked like when we were taking off, and just FYI, I may need to be heavily medicated before we come back and land on it. Aside from that though, it’s pretty amazing to see Catalina from the air. Is that what you wanted to show me?”
“That’s just an added bonus. I’m glad you seem calmer now, by the way. For a few minutes there, I thought you might hyperventilate.”
“I’m not gonna lie, it was scary at first. But this is a lot different than I thought it’d be. When the plane was on the ground, I didn’t have much confidence in it. But now, look at it go! It feels so…effortless, maybe? I don’t think that’s the right word, but hopefully you get what I’m trying to say.”
“I understand. You really only see its full potential when it’s up here, doing what it was made to do.”
“Exactly.” I leaned back and relaxed as we left the island and headed out over open water. After a while, I murmured, “I was so wrong to turn down all your offers to take me flying over the last several months.”
“You finally said yes, which is all that really matters.”
“I missed out on a lot, though.”
He glanced at me and asked, “Do you want to try flying it?”
I sat up and blurted, “What? No! I don’t have a death wish.”
“You’ll be fine. There’s nothing to crash into out here.”
“There’s the ocean, Lorie. I could nosedive into the water.”
He said, as calmly as ever, “There’s absolutely no chance you’ll do that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I trust you. Go ahead and take the wheel.”
“Why?”
“To prove to yourself that you can do this.”
I stared at him for a few moments, and then I took a deep breath and wrapped my hands around the wheel in front of me. He relaxed his hold on his wheel and rested a hand on my thigh as he said, “There. You’re flying.”
“Really?”
“Try turning it.”
I moved it an inch and said, “Nothing happened.”
He grinned at me. “Try turning it a lot more than that.”
It wasn’t anything like driving a car. When I gave the wheel what I considered a sharp turn, the plane gradually arced to the left. But that was enough for me to exclaim, “Oh my God, I’m really doing it!”