Yes, sorry. I realize it's been a LONG time since I've updated this...but now, finally, the title of the blog has some relevance! Since I've last posted I transferred from Reed to 

the University of Washington - Tacoma, immensely cheaper and since I have more free time, I am able to pursue the things I've always dreamed of: like flying helicopters.

This is what I've been up to:

I emailed all of the local helicopter flight schools in the Seattle area, asking if any of them had a job around the schoolhouse where I could just sweep floors, handle phone calls, clean the helicopter, ANYTHING that would fund an intro flight (and possibly more). Well, I got a ton of emails back saying "because of the economy, we currently have no positions available" etc etc. Except for one. One CFI emailed me back (I won't say who and for what company, because I don't want people to bother him for the same deal), and said that while he has no paid positions available, he completely understands the situation I'm in, how he was in this same situation when he was my age, etc. He said he would give me an intro flight on the house. Obviously, I couldn't (and still can't) believe my luck. Sure gives truth to the saying "Where there's a will, there's a way," doesn't it?

Anyway, my intro flight was this morning. 10:00am, did a quick preflight (said he'd go into deeper detail later), showed me how to warm up the helicopter, and then we got light on the skids. First, you should know that I was inwardly VERY worried that I'd get air sickness. Not because I thought I would, but because if I did, it would sure be a pain and another hurdle to get over before I could live out my dream. It was a nagging concern in the back of my mind. But anyway, we got light on the skids, and all nervousness completely disappeared. At that second, I was absolutely CERTAIN that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Then we went into a hover, and my cheeks still hurt from grinning so hard. Then we taxi'd to the runway and away we went. 

Oh sweet Jesus, I've never done ANYTHING as cool as that. We took off from the local airfield, then went closer to the mountains and dropped down to ~30ft above a river and followed it for awhile, popping up and down over falling trees, flying OVER a diving bald eagle, and make a random landing on the riverbed because he wanted to adjust his pedals. At this point I thought I was going to die of sheer glee. I kept waiting for the point where I'd feel sick, but I never did. He was surprised too, since there was quite a crosswind and it was making us yaw quite a bit. So after the river, we headed north to downtown Seattle. Flew over his house (his wife waved from below! So cool!), then over the sports stadiums which were both busy, over some cruise ships at the waterfront, over the Seattle Center, and then looped around and headed back. There are no words to describe just how incredible that was. He let me work the cyclic and pedals quite a bit, actually. At first I was wobbly even though I felt I wasn't gripping the cyclic hard (I'd read a lot to know not to do that). My problem was that my movements were more jerky than smooth and I kept watching the speedometer since he wanted me to keep it at 65 knots. Then he instructed me to watch the blade tips and their relationship to the top of this one cloud, and to keep it there. That sure helped - I improved immediately and he said I was doing very very well. All of a sudden I was keeping the helicopter steady and at a nearly constant 65 knots, without even looking at the instrument panel that much. That was very exciting. Especially with the crosswind, as I felt I had to really apply a lot of left pressure on the cyclic (I say pressure because that's the way he described it - it's more pressure than really swinging the cyclic around). 

Anyway, he took us back to the airport, back to the landing pad, and he had me use the pedals to keep it steady in the crosswind. Took me a bit, but I eventually improved. We landed, cleaned the helicopter, and went back to the hangar to schedule our next flight. 

Overall, it was probably the best two hours of my life (we were in the air for exactly 1 hour 13 minutes), and I am so incredibly lucky and IMMENSELY thankful. My message to those who don't think it's financially plausible - just ask, EVERYWHERE. It is highly unlikely you'll get the same deal (damn near impossible, he said) but you never know. At the very least, you might get a discounted intro flight or even a job at a schoolhouse that is doing well in this economy.

- Lindsey