It's a real pleasure to feature our latest highlight Crosswind Pilot, from Mike Cavanagh.
If you haven't read Mike's travel story entries from earlier this year, then check out:
A Once Upon A Time True Story and Bog Cotton before you read this wonderful highlight.
If you haven't read Mike's travel story entries from earlier this year, then check out:
A Once Upon A Time True Story and Bog Cotton before you read this wonderful highlight.
Crosswind Pilot
Forty knot crosswind. Last plane before the airport is closed. ‘Windy’ Wellington, New Zealand, rated by international pilots as one of the three worst places in the world to land a plane.
‘Yaw’ – twist horizontally.
‘Pitch’ – rock nose up and down.
‘Roll’ – twist on own forward axis.
All three with shuddering, stomach-churning force.
185 souls on board, seatbelts and bottoms clenched, travelling 140 miles per hour, thirty metres off the ground, and already a third along the runway.
One split second, plane aligned.
‘Thump!’ Instantly down, tyres squeal, hold.
Cabin pulsating with 185 souls spontaneously clapping and cheering.
Safe.
Home.
Brief bio:
Mike Cavanagh is now in his sixties and has no idea how that happened. He lives with his wife, Julie, and two black cats in Bateman’s Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Three adult children, mostly left home, complete the extended menagerie. The house Mike and Julie live in is quirky and in need of regular maintenance, as are its owners. Mike writes poetry, plays guitar and composes music, is doing a PhD in Zoology, and spends far too much time playing computer role playing games. None of these very well, necessarily, but he does them.
