Getting Started In...Flying
Popular Mechanics|May 2019

You’ll get to control the plane for a few minutes on your first time up. That’s how they get you.

Getting Started In...Flying
Make Me Want to Do This

Easy. Take a ride. Most flight schools and small aviation companies will charge you no more than a couple of hundred dollars for a taste—usually an hour ride, with an instructor. You get to grab the controls for part of the time, zip around, maybe fly over your house. It’s usually called a discovery flight. Do this.

When you fly in a small aircraft at a low altitude, the sensation is not so much that the world below gets smaller. The overwhelming sensation is that the sky gets bigger. Bigger than you’ve ever seen it, even from some endless beach, or from out in the desert, or from out the multilayered polycarbonate window of a commercial airliner. The sky pulls you up and surrounds you—it feels as if all the blue is keeping you aloft. You feel it in a way you don’t on an oversold 10:45 from Chicago to Dallas.

I had the opportunity to go up in a Cirrus SR22 with my 11-year-old son and a pilot named Ivy McIver. Ivy has been with Cirrus most of her career, selling planes, flying them, evangelizing the very idea of personal flight. She is laidback and cool, and before we left the ground—before we even climbed into the four-person cabin—she demonstrated the entire irresistible attraction of learning to fly yourself in an airplane. Here is how she demonstrated that:

I said, “Where are we going today?” (We were starting out from Westchester County Airport, about 35 miles north of New York City.)

She said, “I thought we would go to an air show in Rhode Island first.”

I said, “Great!”

She said, “After that, I don’t know...we could go to Maine?”

I said nothing.

(We could go to Maine?)

She said, “Or there’s this great ice cream shop in New Hampshire that you can walk to from one of the airports there.”

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2019 من Popular Mechanics.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2019 من Popular Mechanics.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من POPULAR MECHANICS مشاهدة الكل
ONE OF THE 'GREATEST THREATS' TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK.
Popular Mechanics US

ONE OF THE 'GREATEST THREATS' TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK.

EXPERTS ARE PREPARING THE REGION AGAINST THE THREAT OF DANGEROUS VOLCANIC MUDFLOWS, KNOWN AS LAHARS, WHICH COULD INUNDATE THE COMMUNITIES SURROUNDING MT. RAINIER IN AS LITTLE AS 30 MINUTES.

time-read
10+ mins  |
January - February 2025
THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST ROW
Popular Mechanics US

THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST ROW

They rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, battling unpredictable weather, chaotic seas, and finicky equipment. But what they discovered gave them profound new insights into the power of the ocean.

time-read
10+ mins  |
January - February 2025
HOW TO DIY OFF-GRID SOLAR
Popular Mechanics US

HOW TO DIY OFF-GRID SOLAR

SPEND THE TIME UP FRONT AND PLAN IT CAREFULLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT

time-read
9 mins  |
January - February 2025
Are We on the Verge of an ARMS RACE in SPACE?
Popular Mechanics US

Are We on the Verge of an ARMS RACE in SPACE?

RUMORS OF A RUSSIAN SPACE NUKE, ALONG WITH OTHER SATELLITE-TARGETING WEAPONS, HAVE MADE GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS EXTEND INTO ORBIT.

time-read
10+ mins  |
January - February 2025
Fresh Fingerprints on an Ancient Statue
Popular Mechanics US

Fresh Fingerprints on an Ancient Statue

A CLAY FIGURINE HAS SPENT MILLENNIA incomplete, waiting at the bottom of a lake for its long-dead craftsman to finish the Iron Age-era statuette.

time-read
2 mins  |
January - February 2025
Quantum Entanglement in Our Brains
Popular Mechanics US

Quantum Entanglement in Our Brains

IT HAS LONG BEEN ARGUED THAT THE human brain is similar to a computer. But in reality, that's selling the brain pretty short.

time-read
2 mins  |
January - February 2025
The Tools of Copernicus
Popular Mechanics US

The Tools of Copernicus

WAY BACK IN 1508, WITH ONLY LIMited tools at his disposal, Nicolaus Copernicus developed a celestial model of a heliocentric planetary system, which he described in hist landmark work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. It was a complete overhaul of our conception of the universe-one that, unfortunately, earned him the ire of the Catholic church for decades after his death-and forever changed the way we look at the stars.

time-read
2 mins  |
January - February 2025
Building a Sixth-Generation Bomber Raptor
Popular Mechanics US

Building a Sixth-Generation Bomber Raptor

THE GLOBAL COMBAT AIR Programme (GCAP)-a project by the U.K., Italy, and Japan to develop a sixth-generation stealth fighter-has been busy at the drawing board reshaping its vision of the future of air warfare. And judging by the new concept model unveiled at this year's Farnborough air show, that future has big triangular wings.

time-read
3 mins  |
January - February 2025
The Electroweak Force of the Early Universe
Popular Mechanics US

The Electroweak Force of the Early Universe

TODAY, THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT IS governed by four fundamental forces: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity.

time-read
1 min  |
January - February 2025
This Ancient Fossil With a Brain and Guts
Popular Mechanics US

This Ancient Fossil With a Brain and Guts

WE KNOW WHAT FOSSILS LOOK like. For example, typical dinosaur fossils are bones turned to stone and preserved from the passage of time, located, if we're particularly lucky, in large collections that can be reassembled to represent the beast they used to prop up in their entirety.

time-read
1 min  |
January - February 2025