Flying My Wife For The First Time

Today was the day I took my wife up flying for the first time. She’s been on a small plane just once in her life, when she was too young to remember the experience. She was nervous the entire car ride to the airport. She explained to me she was nervous about the flight, but anything about the flight. I get it. Anytime you do something in life you haven’t done before, it can make you nervous. We planned a trip up to Mt. Airy and back. We climbed out and up to 5,500ft. and obtained flight-following. Once we reached our cruise altitude we leveled off and were simply cruising along. She started to relax and talked more. As we got closer and were over top of Pilot Mountain, I was able to listen to the weather at KMWK. The winds were reporting with a fairly strong crosswind. I would have potentially made the landing if I was alone, but with a nervous wife, I declined. So, before descending we did a 180 and headed back south. We made much better time coming back since we now had a nice tailwind. It was also more enjoyable for her since we flew over areas that she has lived and worked in her whole life. She was familiar with buildings, roads, schools, etc. when she spotted them from the sky. We descended, entered the traffic pattern, slowed down, and touched down. No more than 5 seconds after I touched down I hear her say “wow, that was good”. I told her that I thought it really wasn’t that great. Again though, as a pilot now, I make it a game with myself to see how perfectly I can land. The reason this flight had some pressure associated with it was because it was my wife! The one person who has put up with me for the past 8 months through the stress of learning to fly, finances, and a lot of time spent at the airport away from home. This was my chance to impress her with the skills I’ve spent the last 8 months of my life learning. She was indeed impressed, and enjoyed herself tremendously.