Don’t know what prompted this experience; maybe it was an idea of learning how to fly an aircraft and getting a pilot’s license. In any event, that may be one of True_George’s future endeavors, when the opportunity presents itself.

In this experience, I found myself in a twin plane doing a solo flight. It was in the middle of a storm, it was dark and I could hear the sounds of thunder and see flashes of lightning. I wasn’t sure of the destination. Somewhere in the Midwest, maybe Arizona, Nevada, or California.   

I was stuck, there was no visibility and I did not know whether I was going in the right direction. I knew that there was a mountain range in the area, but since I did not know which direction I was going, I did not know whether I would hit the mountain or not.

This reminded me of what I read about Kobe Bryant’s helicopter’s pilot dilemma as to the cause of the accident that killed him, his daughter and the other passengers. Well, I did not want to end up in the same fate.

 Then the words of what a pilot said during a discussion that he gave a couple of years ago came to me. The pilot said sometimes during a flight, the human faculties and orientation can get distorted. To combat the distortion, that a pilot must rely on the plane’s instruments. It will tell you your heading, height, speed or whether you should gain or lower your altitude.

 Since, True_George, has never sat inside a plane’s cockpit, there was no idea of the type of instruments that the pilot was talking about. There was no representation of the aircraft’s instruments in this experience. The only instrument that was evident was the aircraft’s steering wheel.         

Since it was dark, and I didn’t know if the mountain range was in front, or back. I decided to angle the aircraft in a vertical position going upwards as far as it can go so that I can be above the mountain range, and possible above the storm.

Yeah, well since the orientation may be distorted, the only way I knew the aircraft was going up is because tilting the steering wheel will cause the aircraft to go upwards. Yeah, we see that been done in movies and cartoons all the time. I tilted the steering wheel and felt the aircraft move into a horizontal position going up as far as the aircraft would go up. I knew the limitation from the buzz and warning alarms, yeah, the same buzz and warning alarms that I heard in one of those movies’ and batman cartoons when an aircraft hit it’s height limitations.

When the height limitations was reached, the aircraft was straightened to the horizontal position, but I was not above the storm. But lucky for me that the sun light started to shine. The rising sun gave me some sense of direction.

When the sun raised, I found that I was heading North, when I was supposed to be going West, so I turned the aircraft heading to West.

The storm started to dissipate, and I saw that I was passing above the mountain range, so I lowered my altitude. When I was at a lower altitude, I saw four helicopters. I received a radio transmission that they were sent to search for me because I disappeared from the radar.

They were escorting me to the airport when another dilemma happened. I ran out of fuel, and the aircraft was gliding through the air as opposed to flying under its own power.

When I told the helicopter lead pilot that I have no more fuel, that it is most likely that the aircraft will crash land. The helicopter lead pilot suggested that I should use the parachute and bail out. But I was kind of apprehensive of parachuting out the aircraft. I didn’t want to do it.

It was decided that a rescue technique would be used. One of the helicopters will lower some sort of ladder next to the aircraft. I am to open the door and grab hold of the ladder and secure myself, by locking one of the steps on my belt. Once I’m secured on the ladder, the helicopter will reel me in.

I followed the instructions, but I put on the parachute just in case I missed the ladder, or for some reason, I could not secure myself on the ladder.

Things went according to plan; I was secured on the ladder and was reeled into the helicopter safely. The only thing of concern was it is unknown where the abandoned aircraft will crash. Whether it will crash in a city, countryside or on a highway..

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