Sitting upright, belt on, with the in-flight entertainment counting down the minutes to my destination, and with nothing else to occupy myself than the physical sensations being fed to my ears, I feel tuned in. The flaps extended. Once, twice. The engine goes quieter, almost silent, on my noise cancelling headphones. It feels like we’re floating. Another sound, this time a longer rumble than the flaps being extended. It must be the landing gear. To confirm my gut feeling, the sensation of floating changes to the sensation of being held back very gently by my seat. I’m somewhere near the centre of gravity of the plane, but I feel a slight change of attitude. Pitch down. The stabilised glide slope should be 3 degrees, so the correction couldn’t have been more than a fraction of a degree. We’re floating again. Then we’re slowing down. First for a couple of seconds, then for maybe 10 seconds. The wind noise is much louder than the engine noise now. The noise dies. We’re ready to land! I’m far from a window so my only indication is the actual touchdown. I didn’t feel the flare, only the touchdown. Firm braking and a right turn to the taxiway when we’re still at a decent speed. Flawless.
Flying must be like riding a motorbike, except with more controls. It feels the same… except that everything is more measured and precise. Makes me wonder, how would I do as a pilot?
And then I remind myself, I can’t keep a 40 foot yacht in a straight line unless I have a point on the horizon to aim at 😂
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