On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 14:09:25 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

A little background: my wife *DOES* get motion sickness. She's been
going along with my airplane building project for many years now and
over time has grown comfortable with the concept that building an
airplane isn't so hairbrained after all. I've made sure she's been
informed of all the successful home building projects and continually
show her finished airplanes from "Sport Aviation" magazine. So she's
ok with me building the airplane, and she enthusiastically agreed that
it was now time for me to finish my flight lessons begun so long ago.
But actually flying with me, that was something she didn't really want
to discuss, until now, now that I have my pilots license.

She knew I really wanted her to come with me but I knew enough to not
push it hard. I took a couple of flights since I passed the
practical, one solo and another with a friend/mentor who has many
years of flight experience and once taught flying and who flies a
UPF-7 Waco biplane. He was effusive in his praise of the flight to my
wife. That helped a lot as my wife knows he is a consumate
perfectionist, not prone to praise lightly.

So a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of this stretch of really nice
weather we've been having here in New England, I casually asked her if
she'd like to go up for a little hop. Ooooohhhh, not sure, was her
response. I explained that the winds are very calm and that we could
go during the evening when the winds mostly die to dead calm. She
finally agreed to try, as long as I would immediatelyreturn to the
field if things went bad for her. Of course, I responded.

snipped good story.....

Congratulations Corky. I got my ticket in early July and took the
wife (married 29 years) for her first flight in late July. She is
claustrophobic, scared of heights and gets motion sickness. For the
six months that I was taking lessons, I tried to get her to go up
with my instructor figuring that that would eliminate the additional
fear associated with flying with a newbee. She refused and said that
she would only fly with me, if at all. Funny what 29 years can do.
She actually trusts me more than the person that I recommend as the
one who should be trusted.

I finally got her to agree to a flight. My first thought was to take
her around the pattern, land and see how she was doing. The more I
thought about that, the more I realized that I would be exposing her
to the most frightening parts of flying without an opportunity to
relax and enjoy the less stressful aspects of flying. So, I arranged
to fly from N10 (Perkiomen Valley, NW of Philly) to 1N4 (Woodbine, NJ)
to meet some friends for lunch.

Bottom line: we made it and she is not refusing to fly again. She
hasn't yet taken her second flight, but she will. She didn't need the
barf bag and eventually looked out the window. That's more than I
could have hoped for. I won't be pushing her too hard, as I am
gaining valuable experience flying without her and hopefully getting
better. In another 29 years I might actually be good.

Rich Russell