'Real flying' is terrifying yet exciting

Many years ago, during a summer hiatus from college, a young man I was dating invited me to fly with him in a plane.

Looking back I can't imagine what possessed me to say yes, other than the invincibility of youth.

I remember the plane was a crop duster type with no windows other than a windshield. I swear it was not much more developed than the one the Wright brothers flew.

In other words it was exhilarating — but scary!

We were flying so low I recall just missing a wire of some sort.

Recently I had an experience that, while being much safer, still made me recall that long-ago flight.

My good friend and neighbor, Lon Wardrop, has a plane he uses for his business. The plane was coming to Phoenix for the day and my husband and I needed to return to Utah, so we took his offer to ride with him. We got more than we bargained for.

For some reason my husband and I didn't ask many questions about the plane — our conversations usually center on neighborhood stuff.

When my husband and I got to Gateway airport in Gilbert, Ariz., we were met by David, the pilot.

He was a friendly, nice-looking and fairly young guy, but he was dressed pretty casually for a pilot.

That should have been our first clue.

Then we walked through the passenger building out onto the tarmac to a sweet-looking little plane — a Cirrus four-passenger G3 turbo prop — that, after riding on big jetliners, seemed no larger than a car.

A great thing about small planes is flying low enough to see some scenery.

What a vista we saw flying over Phoenix and up toward Flagstaff as the sun was setting. We even took some pictures of familiar landscapes that turned out very well, if I do say so myself.

However, when the pilot said we needed to put on the oxygen masks, I thought he was kidding.

He wasn't.

In addition to the breathing tubes up our nose, we had to talk to each other using a microphone and earphones.

That took a little time to get the hang of.

There were no pretzels, no bathroom. Houston, we have liftoff!