RedBird and the Wife

[MyassisDragon]

Saturday I did a little flying in a RedBird simulator and the wife unit wanted to come along for moral support (it was her valentines gift to me I guess). Then the payback was following it up with shopping and dinner out (this was her gift for me to give her I guess)

It was pretty cool, she actually wanted to practice landing a plane (she is not a pilot, but just plays one in the simulator) so after 3 go arounds, plenty of squaking and screaming she landed the plane.

Then it was my turn to practice an approach to minimums. While I was doing this she was quietly sitting in the instructor chair (right seat) reading her book on the eyepad and answering all my questions with simple single syllable grunts and chirps. Holy cow, talk about simulation this is exactly what happens when we fly in a real plane.....

Sooooo after landing, I removed the clouds and took off for a small flight in the pattern.... This was going to be fun.....I asked a few more questions got a few more simple answers then decided I had enough. I felt the boyish grin stretch into my cheeks, then it happened........I turned the yoke over as far as it would go almost breaking my thumb in the process and it put us into a roll.

The simulator first went into convulsions, rolled us around and the screen showed us spinning upside down, her eyepad went flying onto the floor, then the scream started followed by multi syllable colorful words spewing from her pie hole.
Then the SMACK and stern command to stop it followed by something that sounded like an lawyer repeating an indemnification clause recording with the play back on 4x and the only thing I heard was ....!@@#$^^$#% want me to do this again ...!@#$%#%%%^%^.....Cost you@#%^%$%^^^ Real dinner..&&$%$%^&^&..Clothes%^$%#^%^^.

So I shut the machine down logged out and followed the wife unit out the door......But I still had that darn Grin and I remember the voice in my head telling me ...it was all worth it...

 

[frfly172]

Are you sure it was worth it? Just saying.

 

[MyassisDragon]

Are you sure it was worth it? Just saying.

Fortunately she is actually a blue jean and hiking boot kind of girl so we ended up getting her new smartwool socks and opted for her favorite hole in the wall pizza joint (her choice) for valentines day dinner....

Of course later on that evening she let the dog in from outside after playing in the snow and had him lay down under the covers on my side of the bed........Laughter really is the best medicine........and she has already asked when is the next trip to the simulator..

 

[narchee]

This reminds me of the time I took my two brothers-in-law up for a flight (their first). One was right seat and the other was in the back. We stopped halfway and let them swap.

For BOTH of them I told the one sitting in the right seat that he could fly the plane. I gave basic instructions (push to make us go down, pull to go up, and so on). I'd let them fly for a bit, then without warning I'd subtly touch the yoke with my left finger so they didn't notice and push the yoke forward to start a sudden dive. Both of them would take a couple of seconds to react and realize then try to start pulling back. They were thinking they had done this now. At that point I'd pull back hard with my left finger and the plane would rapidly start climbing. Again not being used to it they wouldn't correct it and then when we shot through the altitude they would finally realize and try to correct. This is when I did the big push and get us to a slightly negative load so that the guy in the back floated up (I had previously said you don't need seat belts during the cruising portion). In BOTH cases I didn't say a word and neither did my two brothers-in-law. I would just say "maybe I should take over". It took all I could do to not laugh out loud. I could just see on their faces the guy in the right seat was thinking "Damn am I that bad at this?" and the guy in the back thinking "WTF is my bonehead brother doing???" We had a good laugh on the ground when I told them it had been me. No, I am not a nice brother-in-law I enjoyed telling my wife what I had done to her brothers.

 

[bobmrg]

This reminds me of the time I took my two brothers-in-law up for a flight (their first). One was right seat and the other was in the back. We stopped halfway and let them swap.

For BOTH of them I told the one sitting in the right seat that he could fly the plane. I gave basic instructions (push to make us go down, pull to go up, and so on). I'd let them fly for a bit, then without warning I'd subtly touch the yoke with my left finger so they didn't notice and push the yoke forward to start a sudden dive. Both of them would take a couple of seconds to react and realize then try to start pulling back. They were thinking they had done this now. At that point I'd pull back hard with my left finger and the plane would rapidly start climbing. Again not being used to it they wouldn't correct it and then when we shot through the altitude they would finally realize and try to correct. This is when I did the big push and get us to a slightly negative load so that the guy in the back floated up (I had previously said you don't need seat belts during the cruising portion). In BOTH cases I didn't say a word and neither did my two brothers-in-law. I would just say "maybe I should take over". It took all I could do to not laugh out loud. I could just see on their faces the guy in the right seat was thinking "Damn am I that bad at this?" and the guy in the back thinking "WTF is my bonehead brother doing???" We had a good laugh on the ground when I told them it had been me. No, I am not a nice brother-in-law I enjoyed telling my wife what I had done to her brothers.

I trust that you have learned the error of your ways.

Bob Gardner

 

[Seanaldinho]

This reminds me of the time I took my two brothers-in-law up for a flight (their first). One was right seat and the other was in the back. We stopped halfway and let them swap.

For BOTH of them I told the one sitting in the right seat that he could fly the plane. I gave basic instructions (push to make us go down, pull to go up, and so on). I'd let them fly for a bit, then without warning I'd subtly touch the yoke with my left finger so they didn't notice and push the yoke forward to start a sudden dive. Both of them would take a couple of seconds to react and realize then try to start pulling back. They were thinking they had done this now. At that point I'd pull back hard with my left finger and the plane would rapidly start climbing. Again not being used to it they wouldn't correct it and then when we shot through the altitude they would finally realize and try to correct. This is when I did the big push and get us to a slightly negative load so that the guy in the back floated up (I had previously said you don't need seat belts during the cruising portion). In BOTH cases I didn't say a word and neither did my two brothers-in-law. I would just say "maybe I should take over". It took all I could do to not laugh out loud. I could just see on their faces the guy in the right seat was thinking "Damn am I that bad at this?" and the guy in the back thinking "WTF is my bonehead brother doing???" We had a good laugh on the ground when I told them it had been me. No, I am not a nice brother-in-law I enjoyed telling my wife what I had done to her brothers.

I like to get them to pull the knob to open the air vents and when they do I pull the power to idle. Half the time that knob shoots right back into the panel.

 

[overdrive148]

I demonstrated the FMX in Turkey last year at an aviation expo and you would not believe the ways that people will actively try to kill you. I was in the instructor seat with people rotating in and out constantly.

The best one was either the F-16 demo pilot (Solo Turk) who got to roll around and try to break the wings off or the lady near the middle of the 2nd day who was with some national TV news network doing an interview and showing it off for the camera. I was in the cockpit on short final into Istanbul, flaps out, ~60kt, and I ask her if she speaks english. So-so. Flight experience? No. I look back and I see my boss looking over the crowd and he's got his fingers at the corners of his mouth and he's saying "SMILE" silently. He also says don't crash. No pressure, just national TV.

Okay, up/down/roll left/roll right. Land there - blank stare - *holds out one hand flat and makes a plane with the other and illustrates* Oh! Okay!

Ask if she's ready, she says yes, I unpause, instantaneously the yoke is turned as far to the left as it can possibly go. In the video you can see me reach over from the instructor station, grabbing the yoke with my left hand and hitting the throttle with the right. We came incredibly close to contacting the solid stuff, although I did recover twice more for her down the runway to help her actually touch down for the camera.

 

[BigBadLou]

Mr Fred, you gave me an idea.
No, I don't want to scare the bejesus out of the wife.

But I spoke to her about a RedBird simulator and while she is absolutely deathly afraid to touch controls on our airplane (she thinks that if she just looks at the yoke, the airplane will flip over and explode mid-air), she is actually open to trying it in the simulator because "she cannot kill us there".

Thank you again, I will be taking the wife to the sim maybe this weekend. I would really like her to know how to handle a few things, just in case.

 

[MAKG1]

I'm not sure that practicing what to do when Lou keels over at 5000 feet is a good way to inspire confidence in the SO.

 

[BigBadLou]

I'm not sure that practicing what to do when Lou keels over at 5000 feet is a good way to inspire confidence in the SO.

True. The SO herself said that she wouldn't want to live without me (and I somehow don't think she was lying ).
But we discussed the possibility of a bird strike, for example, which could take put my half of the windshield and my eyes in which case some knowledge of the aircraft handling would come in handy for the "non-flying-passenger" (to be absolutely PC).

I don't expect her to become a pilot or even take lessons (she won't go for it) but every bit of knowledge helps.

 

[petrolero]

I know that grin.

 

[woodchucker]

Mr Fred, you gave me an idea.
No, I don't want to scare the bejesus out of the wife.

But I spoke to her about a RedBird simulator and while she is absolutely deathly afraid to touch controls on our airplane (she thinks that if she just looks at the yoke, the airplane will flip over and explode mid-air), she is actually open to trying it in the simulator because "she cannot kill us there".

Thank you again, I will be taking the wife to the sim maybe this weekend. I would really like her to know how to handle a few things, just in case.

lol... My wife is deathly afraid of touching anything. I tried to get her to try her hand at the yoke, she used one finger and gave it a half-hearted push. Although she was willing to learn how to turn the radio knobs. But you are right, it's foolish to not at least try to teach frequent passengers a few things, so that they can talk on the radio and keep the wings level at the bare minimum.

 

[MyassisDragon]

Mr Fred, you gave me an idea.
No, I don't want to scare the bejesus out of the wife.

But I spoke to her about a RedBird simulator and while she is absolutely deathly afraid to touch controls on our airplane (she thinks that if she just looks at the yoke, the airplane will flip over and explode mid-air), she is actually open to trying it in the simulator because "she cannot kill us there".

Thank you again, I will be taking the wife to the sim maybe this weekend. I would really like her to know how to handle a few things, just in case.

In all honesty, it was her idea to go with me, just in case something happens and she needs to land the plane....What did suprise her is all the things she needs to pay attention to IE: airspeed, RPM, Altitude, Where the heck are we.....ect.

 

[MyassisDragon]

I'm not sure that practicing what to do when Lou keels over at 5000 feet is a good way to inspire confidence in the SO.

This is what motivated my wife to go and fly the simulator (not Lou, but me) ....Sometimes our kids are in the back seat and that momma bear syndrome takes over.

Now she is talking ground school and flying lessons (but stopping at the point of solo) even though she has no interest in getting her rating.