I was just out of high school. My grandfather and I went to the new IMAX theater on the other side of town to watch the new film The Magic of Flight on the circular, silver screen. He was a World War II pilot. I was a kid just out of high school. My mother thought it would be great for us to see this film together as a bonding moment. A bonding moment, it was.

As you likely know, IMAX theaters are a spherical experience. Every traditional movie theater is a large-format, rectangular screen. Our eyes easily scan left to right and top to bottom to take in the visual experience. With an IMAX theater, our heads and bodies must move to take in the entire experience. It’s easy to get lost with so much screen real estate. The Magic of Flight was just so that. We were immersed in the cockpits of everything from small planes to highly precisioned military aircraft flown by the Blue Angels. Planes took off, landed, and spun in different circles on this large-format, immersive screen. Everyone in that theater that day was at least a touch motion-sick. I remember leaving that theater amazed about the promise and excitement of flight.

Time passed; I got older. Flying became a linear experience. I book a ticket, board a flight, fly in a straight line, and land. My seat in 99Z all but insulates me from the flying experience. Commercial aviation is a lot like riding a bus with food-for-sale options. Over the years, I’ve flown hundreds of thousands of miles, and aside from looking down at neat landmarks or getting trapped in some remarkable turbulence, most of the flying is relatively mundane.

Driving a car or truck has a similar cadence. The vehicle insulates and isolates the driver from the experience. I’ve never said, “That’s an amazing drive down the interstate.” The memorable drives often are on the coast or in the mountains, on a twisty road, with the music up and the windows down. The environment becomes a part of the experience, which transforms the experience.

I’ve never felt the same monotony on a motorcycle as I often experience in a car. Riding a motorcycle always puts the rider at the center of the experience. On a bike, I actively lean into the wind, adjust for weather conditions, and smell nearby restaurants or other vehicle exhaust. Much like The Magic of Flight on the IMAX screen, riding a motorcycle puts you front and center in a very high-resolution world.

I helped a buddy of mine with his computer, as friends often do. It was only an hour or so of my time a few times a year – and I do these tasks myself anyway. My buddy was thankful and wanted to take me up on his plane as a measure of thanks. To say I was nervous was an understatement. As dull as commercial aviation can be, I wouldn’t say I like turbulence – I genuinely hate it. There is something about the feeling of falling I can’t get past. In rough turbulence, I am that guy who grabs the armrests somehow, thinking that will make it better. Veteran pilots tell me I genuinely have nothing to worry about – but it still gets me. I retell every lousy story I’ve heard in my head about Uncle Joe riding his motorcycle and how he crashed. I turn each one of those into a small aircraft story. Of course, I ignore the tens of millions of small plane miles flown yearly without any incident.

Occasionally, my buddy would tap me on the shoulder, “Let’s go flying.” That feeling of nervousness would then creep in. Finally, my buddy asked when my partner was in the Bay Area. My partner has flown all over British Columbia across varied topopgraphies in all sorts of aircraft. He instantly lit up when I mentioned we’d be in a small plane touring the Bay Area. His response was, “absolutely yes!” In the back of my mind, if he could do it – I could do it. We invited one more close friend who was ecstatic as my partner was. The three of us, plus the pilot, were in!

My buddy / our pilot took all our weights – how much stuff we’d be bringing. He did all the required calculations to ensure we didn’t exceed the maximum carrying capacity and distributed us inside the plane. I could feel the anxieties creep in as we drove to Livermore Municipal Airport. Today, the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning, meaning high winds were in the area. Driving through the hangers was super cool! Each hanger had someone’s small plane – each with a story and an adventure.

Today’s aircraft was the Archer II. I had never been this close to a small plane other than when my buddy flew up to Truckee to have my work on his computer (apparently, the work was that important, or he needed a reason to fly :)). It was a touch of both. Today, we pulled the aircraft out of the hangar and loaded our stuff for flight.

Now it was “Go time!” Just about everything in this aircraft felt different than commercial aviation. As our pilot turned the key, I heard the engine sputter to life and saw the propeller start to spin. It felt like the art of a carbureted engine from a former time. The simplicity of the aircraft came into obvious focus. The plane had a body, wings, an engine, and a propeller. We were one with this aircraft. My buddy looked at me and asked, “Are you ready?” I nodded, and we taxied onto the runway.

The engine roared, and we sped down the runway. There was no stopping the aircraft at this point. I was committed. My buddy mentioned flying in this aircraft will feel slower. I didn’t feel his words until the wheels left the runway. Everything about commercial aviation feels fast. In contrast, in this aircraft, everything felt slow (which is a good thing). The entire Bay Area wasn’t going to be a 30-second experience.

We were on what’s known as a Bay Tour. We would travel over the Golden Gate, around the North Bay, and then back to Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK), “the gateway to the Tri-Valley, lol.”

The hard left banking turn caught me by surprise out of the airport. The pilot leaned to the aircraft into the turn, much like a motorcycle leans inside of a tight corner. We followed Interstate 580 to Interstate 680 to Highway 24, much like a vehicle would. Still, we had the vantage point of 3000 feet above sea level.

The turbulence made his face known as the plane made its way past Mount Diablo. With a red flag warning, winds blow from the east at a good clip. Flying across Mount Diablo’s shadow allowed some rough air as the winds combined again from the north and the south edges of the mountain. I admit, there was a little white-knuckling through that part of the flight. I was shocked how good the iPhone was at taking photos from altitude. Even with a modest 3x of zoom, one could see neighborhoods with suprising detail.

As we headed west, paralleling Highway 24, the turbulence dropped substantially. I began to relax, and my curiosity crept in. I started looking around and taking photographs. I wish I had an SLR camera with a polarizer to eliminate reflections from the windows. But alas, I’m working with what I have!

The scenery flying over the confluence of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay was stunning. I got a real sense of the geography of San Francisco, Treasure Island, Alcatraz Angel Island, and the Marin headlands. I could see the developed downtown, the mountains in the central part of the city, and the residential, rectangular, suburban western side of the city. Treasure Island looked perfectly level against a more rocky Yerba Buena Island to the south.

Sometimes, I get down about all our problems here in the Bay Area (much like any place has its issues). Seeing the world from this vantage point is genuinely refreshing to reset around the treasures we do have here.

As we flew north across the Marin Headlands, the treasures of Highway 1 and the Panoramic Highway came front and center. I mean, I know, these highways are twisty – but seeing some favorites at altitude was really cool!

One of my favorite spots in Death Valley is Badwater Basin. Badwater Basin sits at -282 feet. That’s below sea level. Flying over this quarry mine makes negative elevation very clear. I’m not sure I’d like to climb down into that mine; I’m unsure of the structural integrity of its walls. That’s a lot of water pushing against an ever-excavated sidewall. From the air, it’s cool though 🙂

The turbulence of Mount Diablo returned on the southbound journey towards Livermore Municipal Airport. The plane got knocked around a bit with some sudden ups, downs, lefts, rights, and rolls. The guys in the back did fine. As for me, a few white knuckles returned :).

The pilot mentioned landing spooked him most when he first started to fly. In his mind, the ground was coming quickly, and he had to master the art of a gentle landing at speed. When the pilot lined up the plane with the runway, I kept thinking, “Flight attendants, prepare the cabin for arrival.”

Honestly, the landing was one of the most uneventful parts of the flight, which signals a skillful landing by the pilot. Once we touched down, both my eyes and my smile widened immensely. Flying is like riding a motorcycle but in three dimensions!

Thanks guys for a super fun morning up in the skies!