Zero Gravity

Today's adventure with my visiting little sister was to go flying. I've recently gained interest in aviation and thought she should try it so I had her take an intro flight lesson. That means flying around with an instructor for an hour and learning a few things about the plane, a Cessna 172.

I brought my camera jumped in the back. The whole thing reminded me very much of my own intro lesson. The instructor very quickly went over checklists and explained the various instruments. I could see that my nodding sister couldn't make much sense out of this, as one would expect from someone who's never been in a cockpit before.

Once we got off the ground she got to take the flight controls and fly most of the time while the instructor handled the radio communication and made sure we stayed free of the sea-tac airspace and other planes. During the one hour of flying, we got a good view of Snoqualmie Falls and Seattle's surroundings.

The highlight of the flight was when the instructor took the flight controls and showed what zero gravity feels like. Below is a short video of it. You can see how the pen my sister is holding, and other things, start flying around. The beeping sound just before the dive is the stall warning horn going off.