Doing Some Cloud Hopping

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 5

Doing Some Cloud Hopping

WAS afraid to fly. Every time someone asked me to go up I had an excuse-wind, weather circumstances were happy in league with me until one day they all failed me, and here in New Zealand some years ago, I found myself unable to say "no," and ultimately in an open ’plane about to take off. Cheerfully my pilot said: " You have no need to worry, we will just do a straight ten minutes for

your first flight." Up we wentnever will I forget that first sensation, despite my teeth chattering with fear, yet I still could feel that marvellous thrill of leaving the earth for the first time. An emancipation of the soul-it was as if the body mattered no longer and one was free-free of all-free. of the petty differences of the earth -out in God’s good air and

floating away from one’s own small old self into something bigger, better, cleaner, broader, fresher. Yes, in spite of my years I felt all that, and then I came back to the realisation. I had nothing between me and the ground and I just didn’t like it. My hands froze on the side of the cockpit and my lips found their way between my teeth, the palms of my hands were moist-yes, I just was frightened. My pilot spoke to me, "Do you like it?" I grunted -speech was impossible, "Good," he said, "I’m glad, shall we do some cloud hopping? It will be a bit bumpy." Another inaudible grunt-*" great!" he said, " you are a sport. We'll stay up twenty minutes since you like it so much." After what appeared a lifetime we came down.-(" Why I Learnt to Fly," by Evelyn Gardiner, 2YA, April 2.)