Tuesday, August 21, 2007

A Young Mind Takes Flight


The Department of Defense was kind enough to sponsor me on an all expense paid trip to Honolulu for the month of August. Of course, I had to commit to long days of surgery and endless clinic hours in the Army Hospital there in exchange. They were kind enought to give me the weekends off to explore the island and and partake of all its recreational wonders. While I'm spending the weekends surfing, scuba diving, and hiking through wilderness, my father volunteered to pick up some of the slack with Jamal. A licensed pilot, and fanatical flight buff, he recently made another trip to the friendly skies above Prince George's County with Jamal in tow. His account of the weekend is below.

"...When I first mentioned it to him almost a year ago, he rejected the trip out of hand, showing no interest in flying around the county is a small aircraft, a Cessna 172 to be exact. But after we spent some time together, he actually seemed to warm up to the idea. We set the date, I reserved an aircraft at Freeway Airport for Saturday morning and it was a go.

All week, Jamal kept track of what the weather forecast. In fact, one day he called and asked me if we were going to fly if there was a thunderstorm. I assured him that if the weather was not nearly perfect – if we couldn’t see at least three miles in front of us, little wind, high clouds – that we probably would not go flying.

Then he asked an interesting question: If we don’t go flying Saturday morning, are you going to take me straight back home? At that point I realized that he actually enjoyed being around me. It was almost as if I had another son – except of course for the fact that he actually enjoyed being around me.

The weather was right on the edge Saturday morning. There was a broken layer of clouds at 1400 feet, and that meant we would not be taking a trip over the bay to have breakfast. Instead, we flew out to the practice area and fiddled around a little for about twenty minutes.

When we first took off, he was a little uncomfortable. And every time the plane shook, he was obviously startled. We got to listen to Air Traffic Control talk to a couple of heavies on approach to Baltimore Washington International, to Trooper 2 – a Maryland Highway Patrol Helicopter, and various general aviation aircraft like the one we were flying. He even got to listen to me as I participated in the air traffic exchanges. Interestingly, he said I sounded like a robot when I was talking to them.

We finished flying and had breakfast at one of the newer diners in the area. On the way back to the house – he had almost convinced me to return to the house and play video games – I stopped off at a hobby shop and looked around a bit.

That was when I saw the jet-propelled scale model of an F-4 Phantom. Jamal asked if the model could go as fast as the airplane we flew that morning. I arrogantly said “No.” After all, we were flying a real plane and our top speed was about 120 knots. It turned out that the radio controlled model had a top speed of 200 knots, real knots not scale ones.

In a case of pure serendipity, the worker-bee told us about the radio control club that flew out of PG County. I decided to take him (part of that exposure thing) and see what they were doing there.

As we pulled up to the field, I heard the unmistakable sound of a jet engine – a small jet engine – but a jet engine none the less. One of the enthusiasts was flying an RC Model that had a real jet engine in it.

It turns out the guy had spent over $5400 building the aircraft. We watched several other people fly their planes and once the jet fellow flew a second time, we left for home.

While we were driving from place to place, Jamal asked me to tell him the difference between a blimp and a hot air balloon. At that point I felt my fatherly impulses kicking in. As a result, when we finally got back to the house, I had him research the two (I also threw in the Zeppelin for good measure). An hour and a half later, with very little coaching from me, he explained the difference between a blimp, a hot air balloon, and a Zeppelin.

I think I made a little bit of progress with him. We didn’t play video games the entire time he was at my house. He had to stretch his brain, and he did something he had never done before (he did actually fly the plane for a moment). All in all, I think it was a good day. And more importantly, I think Jamal enjoyed himself and learned a lot about what it takes to succeed in life and perhaps even what the possibilities are for him. We should be seeing each other again in about a month."


I gave Jamal a call some days after the flight and he told me that he really enjoyed it. Despite being a little scared, he wants to go back up sometime soon.