chuck in the cockpit

Originally uploaded by eoshea.

Every once in a while you have a great idea. I had one recently. I was trying to think of what to get Chuck for his birthday this year, and was a bit stuck. We start planning these things early, because he has a family tradition that your birthday is your special day, so we do sort of go all out in the gift department. So there I was contemplating possibilities. And then it struck me: one of his favorite movies of all time is Top Gun. The way his eyes light up in that opening sequence, well, you can just tell he’s in the cockpit with them! And that was my idea: to give him a flight in a top gun plane, or as close to that as I could get. I enlisted the assistance of my brother-in-law who is a pilot to find a group that had a good reputation (hey, I’d really prefer he stay IN the air, okay?) and was still fun. That’s how we found American Warbird. I gave him the gift certificate on his birthday, and yesterday we drove down to Murrietta for the flight (they travel around the country doing flights, and in So Cal they fly out of French Valley Airport). It wasn’t until we arrived that the coolness of what was about to happen began to overtake Chuck. He became very quiet, but had this growing grin on his face. They did the preflight rundown of what to expect, and then we walked out to the plane (I wasn’t actually supposed to walk out to the plane but I did anyway). They strapped him in and off he went. Given that he has a woeful lack of what I call his fear gene, he was up for the most they had to offer: a full hour of barrel rolls, loops, a clover leaf and various other stomach-turning aerobatics. He got to take the controls and do some of the maneuvers himself. By the time they landed, he was clearly over the moon, wearing what he later described as his “shit-eating” grin. All in all, I have to say, it’ll be very hard to top this gift.

Pics here.