Travel Blogger Daily Blog: The Thrill Of Flying In A Private Plane

Up, Up And Away Soaring Over Los Angeles

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger

The pilot looks to his – or her – left and the right, and yells out “clear the prop!”

He – or she – then turns a key and the engine seems to cough a little before coming to life,  kind of like me when I have to wake up early in the morning.

Flying in a small private plane is a heck of a lot different than flying in a commercial airliner. It’s also a bigger thrill in ways that I could not have begun to imagine until I experienced it for myself.

For starters, you get to wear a headset. The kind with the big, round earpieces and a microphone by the mouth. That’s just cool.

Secondly, you get to watch the pilot, whether you are in the co-pilot’s seat in the front or in the back. You get to see them go through their checklist, turn a bunch of mysterious knobs and switches and get to hear them talk to the control tower (in jargon I can’t begin to understand; what the heck does “papa” mean. To a writer, it’s Ernest Hemingway).

I have two friends with private planes in Southern California, Rob (who calls his red, white and blue Cessna “Captain America”) and Ramona (who calls herself Sky Chick), and I’ve been up in each one’s plane.

At first, I was a bit apprehensive; after all, the distance from the door to out of the plane is about the thickness of my iPhone, and of course each plane only has one engine so if something were to go wrong, well…

But then we take off and – wow, that’s so smooth and easy! The planes rise to around 4,000 feet, which means when we’re over the beach and the water you’re high enough to know you’re in the air but low enough to see a lot more detail than is possible in a commercial airliner.

In Southern California, there are so many places to fly to, too, although just flying around is fun. You can sky over the Hollywood sign, the Queen Mary and even pop over to Catalina Island to its “Airport In The Sky” for its locally famous Buffalo Burger.

Or go to Palm Spring, Santa Barbara, San Diego, the Central California wine county and even up to Carmel and Monterey (for more wine!).

If you want to fly like PubClub.com around Southern California you either need good friends with a plane or you can hire a pilot to take you around, up and over the places. For me, I’m fortunate to have friends like Sky Chick and Captain America.

So where are we off to next?  Who knows, but I’m definitely “up” for the adventure.

Cheers!