Emily's First Flight Lesson

Hello! My name is Emily and I'm married to Patrick,  the owner and creator of  Nflightcam.  I'm going to be writing my adventures in learning to fly here at the Nflighcam Blog.  Of course, I'll be using Nflightcams to capture the flights.   You know, being married to a pilot, I've been asked on a regular basis, "So when are you going to learn to fly?" My answer was a firm, "No thanks. I like being a passenger." But when I started making my list of 30 Things by 30, I just knew that learning to fly had to be one of them. I'm not exactly sure what's been holding me back from it for so long.  I'm certainly not scared of flying. Well, okay, I'm not scared of riding in airplanes. Piloting an airplane? Maybe a little. And I think there was a lot of self-doubt there too. I just couldn't imagine myself being capable of it.  But the look on Patrick's face when I told him I was considering taking lessons sold me.  He has never pressured me to learn, and I nearly had to scrape his chin off the floor when he heard my idea. His response, after the jaw drop, was immediate enthusiasm. He wanted to schedule my first lesson for the very next day.  So, the week before Christmas I took my very first lesson.  Flight schools often call them Discovery Flights. Here's a quick look at how that went:   Emily's First Flight from Patrick Carter on Vimeo. :::: Sidenote: I'm taking lessons from SkyVenture Aviation (their office is right next door to Nflightcam's).  At the time of this writing, I've taken 3 more lessons (videos to come of some of those too!) Several people have asked me why Patrick isn't doing my instruction. Well, first, his CFI is expired. And he could easily renew it, but we're also pretty sure that the cost of lessons would be less than the therapy that would be required if Patrick tried to teach me. To say that we have different learning styles is an understatment.  We both heartily agreed that an objective teacher was needed. Adam, the instructor in the video, is being very patient with me, to say the least. :::: There's a point in that video where I can hear the straight-up fear in my voice. My instructor had me taxi to the runway (which I am terrible at, by the way) and then told me I would be taking off.  Wait. What? Isn't this the first lesson?? He's telling me something about the airspeed and I respond with a very nervous Mmmhmmm.  We edited out a lot of the talking for brevity, but I have a notable tremor in my voice throughout the whole thing. The fear might shake my voice a bit, but it won't shake my resolve. Let's do this.