Flying With Precious Cargo On Board

The day came, the day of taking my mom flying for the first time. Time to impress her and show her what her son can do and what he’s spent the majority part of a year learning. I asked my mother if she would like to fly with me as I would take her flying for her birthday. She gladly and excitedly accepted and said we didn’t need to travel very far, just out and about, then come back to our origin airport. We arrived at the airport and I began preflighting the aircraft. My mom was so excited throughout this whole process. I think she enjoyed just being at the airport, seeing the planes taxi, takeoff, land, even being parked near her! My mom is one of the happiest people I have ever met so it doesn’t take much for her to get excited and enjoy something. I wasn’t rushing through the preflight, but I was very focused and moving at a standard quick pace. I backed everything up with the checklist to confirm and did one last walk-around. My mom wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything and did everything I normally do. I explained that just because I make it look easy, doesn’t mean I skipped a step! I gave her a passenger brief and explained what we were going to do. I then showed her how to board the plane, adjust the seat, and fasten the belts. We fired up, ran through the checklists, and began to taxi. From this moment, throughout the entire flight, she was smiling. Happy as can be. I did a runup and we approached the threshold. I ran through our pre-takeoff checklist and explained to her my abort plan on takeoff. We closed the doors and windows and took the runway. Her phone immediately came out and began filming videos. Once we rotated, it was nothing but happiness from her.