{"id":220,"date":"2014-06-16T11:23:50","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T10:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/?p=220"},"modified":"2014-08-06T10:21:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T09:21:56","slug":"taking-to-the-skies-with-the-north-london-flying-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/taking-to-the-skies-with-the-north-london-flying-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking to the skies with the North London Flying School"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the s.o.’s birthday and seeing how he is head over heels with planes, what better surprise than a trial flight lesson<\/strong>. An idea which could have spectacularly backfired, considering how I love a number of things in theory but would never do them in practice. Thankfully, he was a trooper and enjoyed the experience thoroughly. Phew.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I do admit I was very careful about not revealing the whole idea to him so as we turned into the little country lane and he saw the “Panshanger Aerodrome<\/strong>” sign his jaw dropped off but he rallied marvellously.<\/p>\n

\"North<\/a><\/p>\n

\"North<\/a><\/p>\n

\"North<\/a><\/p>\n

The North London Flying School<\/strong> have a really lovely thing going on at Panshanger Aerodrome. A great\u00a0outside space in full view of the planes, some coffee and nibbles, a club house and a real atmosphere of camaraderie. People seem to know each other, joke around and exchange stories and ideas about plane\u00a0maintenance. The visitors are made to feel very welcome, even though they are so obviously newbies.<\/p>\n

Our instructor was Mikey<\/strong> – a guy incredibly skilled at putting you at your ease and explaining things<\/strong>. He made complicated things sound very easy, took care of safety without going all military on us and just made the whole thing extremely enjoyable. The s.o. was given the controls for the whole flight and Mikey helped with explaining, slightly correcting where necessary and making sure I was doing O.K. in the passenger seat and not about to faint. Apparently you feel the movement more in the back.<\/p>\n

\"Loved<\/a><\/p>\n

Like an idiot I used the microphone to say things like “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Captain has switched on the seatbelt sign…<\/em>” and explain to the slightly bewildered Mikey a scene from a old Greek film in which pulling someone’s hair makes the plane climb. I’m not sure I was helping anyone’s concentration really.<\/p>\n