Flying an airplane

What is this thing called gravity?  When I am in the airplane it floats in the clouds as if it is a feather, but when I leap off a table, I land on the ground with a thump! My friend Jackie is learning how to fly airplanes.  Flying a plane is very different from driving a car. There are no stop signs and traffic lanes are not marked in the air.  Even the controls are different. The yoke works like a steering wheel in a car. Push the yoke to go down, pull to go up, and use left and right to roll.  Most pilots don’t want to roll the airplane upside down, but it is important to know how to straighten the plane if winds are strong.  One of the hardest things about flying a plane is putting it on the ground again.  The day you fly solo is like getting your driver’s license.  There is custom when you pass your test to cut the back of your shirt off and write the date and plane identification on the shirt.  With no instructor to guide you it is a scary experience so the shirt if often soaked in sweat. Still, it is a treasure to those who earn it. “Better to be on the ground wanting to be in the air than in the air wanting to be on the ground” is the motto of experienced pilots.       Purrs, Gulliver