I am afraid of heights, which—unfortunately—makes my pursuit of aviation about as logical as a fish enrolling in a marathon or a claustrophobe taking up cave spelunking. A truly courageous endeavour, much like a vegan training to become a butcher or an arachnophobe opening a pet tarantula store.
You’re absolutely correct—most people with a healthy aversion to plummeting from great heights would sidestep the whole “becoming a pilot” business altogether. After all, learning to fly does, regrettably, involve taking to the skies, which are, by definition, not the reassuring embrace of solid ground. And yet, here I was, determined to tackle my fears head-on, proving that absolutely nothing could keep me down... well, except for gravity, poor decision-making, and, possibly, catastrophic mechanical failure.
Flensburg, Germany, January 2011.
So, there I was, crouched in the pilot seat of a pocket-sized aircraft—a Cessna 152—seriously sweating, thoroughly terrified, and painfully aware of the imminent destruction that was surely about to descend upon me.
And so far, we hadn’t even fired up the engine.
Assuming, of course, that this dwarfish contraption actually possessed a power source capable of propelling us forward, instead of, say, merely sputtering out one final, wheezing cough before dropping us like a rock. It was less “state-of-the-art flying machine” and more “retired lawnmower with wings.”
How, exactly, had I managed to land myself in this particularly regrettable predicament?
I frantically clawed through the archives of my memory, searching for any moment in my life that even came close to inspiring this level of sheer, gut-wrenching terror. A near-death experience? A brush with an apex predator? Anything?
The best I could come up with was a mildly unsettling encounter with a great white shark—though, in fairness, it was very much dead and had been pickled in formaldehyde for decades inside a giant glass refrigerator in Airlie Beach, Australia. Hardly the stuff of nightmares. More of a museum exhibit with teeth.
No, this? This was true horror.
The instructor seated next to me radiated the kind of unshakable calm that, in my current state, felt deeply offensive. A modicum of reassurance would have been welcome, but of course, my brain—now officially in full fight-or-flight mode (and leaning heavily toward flight… ironically)—was having none of it.
His name was Enrique.
A promising start. A name like Enrique conjured images of an effortlessly suave, possibly rogue pilot with an exotic, devil-may-care attitude. Someone who would light a cigarette mid-barrel roll, wink at danger, and casually reference past careers as a stunt pilot and an international smuggler. I would have quite enjoyed taking flying lessons from someone with a similarly twisted frame of mind as mine. Of course, this would have likely resulted in a global-scale disaster, but at least it would’ve been an entertaining one.
Enrique, however, was none of those things.
In fact, he was the exact opposite of what I wanted in an instructor. Every inch the strict, no-nonsense German ex-Navy pilot, he had all the warmth of an overachieving refrigerator and the enthusiasm of a tax accountant at gunpoint. The man had posture. He spoke in clipped, efficient sentences. His presence alone made me feel as though I had already failed several tests I hadn't even taken yet.
Wasting no time, he launched into what I could only describe as pre-flight purgatory—a soul-crushing monotony of procedures, checklists, and technical jargon, all delivered with the fineness of a sledgehammer to the frontal lobe.
It was devastatingly dull.
Within minutes, I was bored stiff. My mind started desperately searching for an escape hatch. Since there were none on this particular brand of winged coffin, I opted for the next best thing: completely detaching from reality.
I made a silent vow: Once I get my license, I will never, under any circumstances, do another pre-flight briefing again.
A noble goal, I think we can all agree. And I am proud to report that to this day, I have remained resolutely faithful to that promise.
Has this choice led to occasional bouts of mild chaos and avoidable panic? Yes.
Would I change my ways if given the chance? Absolutely not.
By the time Enrique’s droning had carried on for what felt like several lifetimes, my mind had wandered far, far away—specifically to the sprawling savannahs of Tanzania, where I had once spent an equally terrifying night in uncomfortably close proximity to some large, murder-capable wildlife—when suddenly, his voice yanked me back to reality.
And just like that, I was officially about to attempt flight.
God help us all.
He had started explaining the tasks we were about to tackle that day.
Oh, dear.
I had absolutely no clue what Enrique was droning on about, but his tone alone was enough to leave me deeply, existentially alarmed. It carried the unmistakable weight of work—the kind that inevitably led to discomfort, suffering, and possibly death.
I needed an exit strategy. Immediately.
A quick mental scan for still-living relatives who could conveniently fall “gravely ill” at a moment’s notice came up depressingly empty. Useless, every last one of them. Fine. Plan B, then: With the conviction of a seasoned con artist, I threw my arm toward the sky, pointing dramatically at a lone, laughably insignificant cloud miles in the distance.
“Looks like bad weather incoming,” I announced, my voice laced with feigned concern. “Safety first, Enrique. We should probably, I don’t know, stay on the ground and maybe just taxi around for a few hours? Really master that part before we—uh—introduce unnecessary risks?”
Enrique, predictably, ignored me.
And so, against my better judgment, every fibre of my being, and the fundamental laws of common sense, we took off.
To my immense surprise (and lingering disappointment), the aircraft actually ascended into the sky without bursting into flames, violently disintegrating, or plummeting straight back down in a fiery spectacle. We climbed to 2,000 feet, which exceeded my personal comfort zone by a good, well… 2,000 feet.
I was about to enter a full-blown existential crisis when Enrique, in an act of unexpected mercy, kept things pleasantly tame. As a supposed warm-up for the undoubtedly horrifying, potentially bowel-loosening tasks ahead—of which I still had no clear idea—we executed a few gentle turns and leisurely drifted over the scenic landscape below.
The weather was lovely. The view was peaceful. For a brief, shining moment, I even began to think: Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
Of course, I was entirely, devastatingly wrong.
Reflecting on the day’s events later, it became clear that Enrique had strategically lured me into a trap. A false sense of security. Perhaps even enjoyment.
This, naturally, was a setup.
Because without so much as a polite heads-up or a “Hey, by the way, this next part may ruin your will to live”—Enrique abruptly began violating the aircraft’s controls. He fumbled with a baffling array of levers, buttons, and mysterious aviation relics designed by Satan himself, then violently yanked back on the yoke. Now, for the uninitiated: the yoke is the airplane’s version of a steering wheel, but far, far worse.
A car’s steering wheel, for example, doesn’t suddenly hurl you toward the heavens with the sheer, merciless force of a medieval catapult. A car’s steering wheel doesn’t casually defy the laws of physics and common decency.
The effects were immediate and profoundly traumatising.
My stomach violently attempted to exit my body. My brain sent out a full-scale emergency broadcast to every internal organ, screaming “THIS IS IT. GOODBYE.” My soul? It abandoned ship entirely. This was no longer just a flying lesson. This was a hostage situation.
First, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the serene blue sky above us. Then, in an instant, our tiny flying deathtrap executed a stomach-churning dive to the left.
The tranquil sky vanished, replaced by a violently rotating nightmare of spinning earth and clouds. My inner ear immediately declared war on my entire existence, while my stomach—desperate to flee the scene—attempted a dramatic escape up my throat.
And then came the screaming. To clarify: This was not me.
I was far too frozen with terror to produce even a whimper. Instead, I nearly jumped out of my skin in horror. The unholy, banshee-like wailing came from the engine, which sounded deeply, profoundly offended by whatever Enrique had just done.
The world spun violently, mercilessly, unnecessarily. The ground rushed toward us at what I could only assume was terminal velocity, and I became absolutely convinced of our imminent demise.
This is it, I thought. This is how it ends.
Curiously, I did not experience the fabled “life flashing before your eyes” moment. Turns out that’s complete nonsense. My mind was utterly blank—no poignant memories, no profound realisations, not even a sentimental montage of questionable life choices.
Just pure, unfiltered, animalistic panic. And then—as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The violent dive, the ungodly spinning, the hellish protest of the engine—all of it ceased. The plane was now serenely gliding along, as if it hadn’t just tried to murder me in cold blood.
I sat there, trembling, drenched in a cold sweat, heart pounding like a death metal drum solo, and utterly flabbergasted. Meanwhile, Enrique, my treacherous co-pilot and would-be assassin, sat beside me, as calm as a Hindu cow, his expression one of mild professional indifference.
He wasn’t even breathing hard. Not a hair out of place.
Completely unbothered by the pure, unhinged chaos he had just unleashed.
I, on the other hand, was actively plotting his immediate ejection from this aircraft.
My mind conjured the scene in vivid, glorious detail: Me, slowly turning to face him. Me, leaning over, unlatching his door, and—with one decisive kick—sending him careening into the great blue yonder.
Regrettably, this plan had one minor flaw. I had absolutely no idea how to land the plane.
Which meant, for now, Enrique lived.
“This,” Enrique began with maddening calm, as if we weren’t currently hurtling toward oblivion, “is what we call a power-off stall in landing configuration.”
The sound of his voice snapped me out of my murderous daydream.
“And now,” he continued, with what could only be described as sadistic glee, “this is a power-on stall in clean configuration.”
Before I could utter a single word of protest, before my survival instincts could even so much as issue a feeble “Wait, Enrique, no—,” we were plummeting again.
This time, for the sake of variety, the dive rolled us violently to the right. The engine screamed in mechanical agony, a tortured, vengeful howl that sent ice through my veins as we spiralled downward in a vicious, bone-rattling twist.
Once again, I was plunged into an abyss of sheer, unfiltered terror. The aircraft had turned against me.
It threw me left, right, forward, and back, as if it had a personal vendetta. My body felt like a sock in a washing machine on its final, violent spin cycle. My brain? My brain was done. It had thrown in the towel, packed its bags, and was currently sprinting toward the exit, screaming.
And then—amidst the chaos, amidst the sheer, unhinged maelstrom of horror—I heard it. A calm, almost fatherly voice. Not Enrique’s. No, this voice resonated in my head, deep and unwavering:
“The Force runs strong in your family, young Skywalker…”
Wait, what?!
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!
Oh yes. Insanity had officially arrived. Apparently, my mind—in its final act of defiance—had decided that, instead of processing my imminent death, it would simply lean into full-blown psychosis.
I braced for impact.
But then—just as before—the brutal nosedive halted. The engine miraculously held itself together, and we leveled out once again, as though none of it had ever happened.
Once more, I sat there trembling, drenched in cold sweat, and absolutely ruined as a person.
Once more, Enrique sat beside me, serene as that infernal Hindu cow.
I turned my head slowly, deliberately, my trembling hands gripping the seat so tightly my knuckles had turned a ghastly shade of white.
And in that moment, a profound realisation took root. Enrique and I could never, under any circumstances, be friends.
Acquaintances? Perhaps.
But friends? Not in this lifetime.
Not in any lifetime.
Not unless I miraculously outlived him and got to personally oversee his aviation-themed Viking funeral, where I’d set his aircraft adrift on a lake, light it on fire, and whisper:
"There, Enrique. May you finally find peace, you reckless, unholy SON OF A BITCH ."
The remainder of the flight passed in an unspoken truce of silence—initiated entirely by me, since Enrique, emotionally stunted robot that he was, had already moved on from my brush with death like it was a routine Tuesday.
I had made up my mind. Enrique no longer existed.
Nor did my so-called “dream” of becoming a bush pilot, gallantly soaring over the savannahs to save endangered elephants from poachers and existential dread.
That fantasy had died a violent, undignified death at 2,000 feet.
I was done.
No more cockpits.
No more unwarranted trust in “flight instructors” who took far too much pleasure in my suffering.
And most importantly—No. More. Cessnas.
Since that day, I have hated Cessnas with a vengeance.
That rattling, tin-can-with-wings contraption had burned itself into my psyche like a brand. Never again would I voluntarily step into one of those flying deathtrap coffins, those deceitful little demons of the sky, promising freedom but delivering only existential terror.
I would rather ride a donkey off a cliff than willingly enter a Cessna ever again.
Eventually, we touched down, the tires gently kissing the tarmac in a way that felt frankly insulting considering what I had just endured. Enrique, ever the detached, unfazed sadist, suggested we proceed with the mandatory post-flight briefing.
I, however, had reached the absolute limit of my tolerance for aviation-related trauma and politely declined.
“I think I’ve been briefed enough for one day,” I muttered, my voice betraying a weariness that even I hadn’t anticipated.
With that, I made my excuses, turned on my heel, and walked away—without a backward glance.
Enrique? Dead to me.
Aviation? Dead to me.
Cessnas? Burn them all.
But as I stormed toward an uncertain future, something unexpected stirred.
Was this really the end?
Would I forsake the skies forever? Would I abandon my lofty ideals of wildlife conservation, of soaring over golden savannahs to rescue endangered species with nothing but a plane and sheer, foolhardy willpower?
Perhaps.
I didn’t know.
Life, after all, has a twisted sense of humour. Grand dreams are often dashed by small, brutal realities—like having your stomach permanently etched with the memory of an aircraft attempting to murder you mid-air. But then again, isn’t that what life is? A series of uncomfortable lessons disguised as opportunities?
So, as I trudged away from the runway—my heart a little heavier but my resolve, surprisingly, still intact—I wasn’t sure what the future held.
But I did know one thing:
For now, I could rest easy knowing I hadn’t plummeted into a fiery, catastrophic mess.
At least…
Not yet.
Marcel Romdane, signing off.
Me and the nasty-ass flying coffin at Hamburg's Airport
