Doing it for real...the first flight as a 'proper' pilot.

The first flight on your own license is a strange feeling. You step through the doors of the flying club like you've done a 50 times before, and everything looks the same. The sofa and the table are in the same place and the people sat around are invariably the same people that you've come to recognise over the last year or so. But something just feels different. The brown wallet from the CAA burning a hole in your back pocket seems to make everything a bit more real.

And strangest of all, I've got a passenger. I'd promised Jen, my girlfriend, that she'd be my first passenger and now that the time has come round, she hasn't backed down. That's despite never having been in an aeroplane of any kind before...no pressure then!

The Severn - The photo makes the haze look worse than it was

It's a bit hazy, not really ideal for someones first flight, but it's early in the morning so the thermals shouldn't be too active. We've decided to just do a short sortie around the local area in case Jen doesn't enjoy it. I settle on a simple route from Gloucester to the Severn Bridges, over Pontypool and back up to the Malverns if there's time.

After a pretty thorough passenger brief (because Jen's never been air side before), before she knows it Jen's strapped in to G-BKDJ and we're taxiing out. I call ready for departure, a private jet is told to hold and wait for us (I love it when that happens!), and we're given our clearances. Time to go.

The 'old' Severn Bridge from the air

I check that Jen's ok and feed the power in, and we accellerate smoothly away. At 50kts I raise the nosewheel, and at about 60 it all goes smooth as DJ just flies itself off. We look back in just enough time to see the Citation Jet taking off behind us, and I turn south to get out of the way. In no time we're south of Gloucester and heading for the bridges.

Jen's gone a bit quiet. Later, she admits that there was a bit of turbulence on the climb out that made her nervous, but in no time we're at our cruise altitude and the bridges are in sight. Even the haze seems to be easing off.

I love seeing things from the air, it's just something you just can't do any other way. Structures that seem enormous from the ground look tiny from just 2000ft and the green fields seem to go on forever. Jen's impressed with the colours of the resevoir near Pontypool, and we bank over it to get a better view before heading back up the river towards the Malverns.

The Forest of Dean - The haze is clearing

By the time we get as far as Ledbury there the haze is descending again. Jen's feeling ok, but the decision's made to quit while the going's good and head back to Gloucester. An overhead join and a fairly uneventful landing and we're back on terra firma.

Parking up and pulling the mixture to kill the engine is pretty satisfying. I've been able to share the experience for the first time, and hopefully Jen can see why I've been rambling on about it. Talking afterwards, it seems that some of my enthusiasm has rubbed off, but there's still a long way to go. Words like 'unnatural' are banded around to describe the takeoff, but the views were a hit, so we'll call it a success. It's only been an hour, but we've done about 110 miles, and seen an area of the country that it would've taken a whole day to cover in the car. Showing it to someone else has justified the cost and hard work at a stroke. Sometimes, life's pretty good.