June 11th: Plane Ride to Nantucket

On June 11th my dad and I set out for a trip to Nantucket in his small Cessna plane. My dad bought this plane a year ago and is meant for flying relatively short distances. It's a one engine plane that seats four including the pilot. I never really get nervous when flying but when I fly in this plane for some reason it always makes me a little nervous. We were taking off from Bridgeport, CT which is a close city from where I live. We got the the airport at around 8:45 AM and at that time the pilot told us there could be a delay because of heavy fog on the island. I didn't think much of it because there is always fog on and around Nantucket but I was in for a trip I will never forget.

We got delayed for about 15 minutes before we took off so I figured the fog had left the island. My dad let me sit in the co-pilot seat because he knew the pilot would let me fly it for a little once we were up in the air. I was wearing a head set that was on the same channel as the tower and it was a pretty cool experience getting to listen to one guy directing all of the air traffic. After we safely got up into the air the pilot let me take over. I was obviously nervous so I didn't fly it for too long but when your that high up in the air there is not much to do in terms of flying. Anyway, as we approached the island heavy fog was coming in quickly. It went from a bright and sunny day to us being in very thick fog. The pilot was telling me it is going to be a tough landing because the fog is so thick. This made me really nervous but at the same time it was cool because I could see how experienced or not this pilot was. As we approached the runway you literally couldn't see a thing and when we got to about 200 yards from the runway I was getting even more nervous. At about 100 yards we popped through the clouds, saw the runway and made a safe landing. It was a really cool experience I had because I have never been so nervous in my life/ learned that GPS probably just saved my life. I had a great weekend in Nantucket playing golf and hanging out at the beach. I will never forget this scary plane ride and everyone should be glad they weren't on it next to me.