My new living arrangements came with a couple of kids, and today I decided to try to take one of them - a six year old girl - flying.

She was very excited about it but I kept envisioning a full on panic attack at startup or, worse, in the air. So I did a lot of talking to her, trying to tell her how fun it all is but how loud it is going to be and other things that might trigger her fears. Yet at the same time I didn't want to psych her out of the whole thing. Last weekend we went to the airport as observers and I let her and her eight year old brother sit in the plane and we watched some other planes come and go.

Her brother, who wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, is very adamant about not wanting to go in a small plane. No amount of explaining that his career will start here helps, he won't go. She, on the other hand, is very enthusiastic about it.

So today I reserved a plane and took her out to the airport. She never missed a chance to tell anyone she saw that she was about to take her first ride in an airplane. I took her around the preflight with me, explaining what each thing did which she didn't seem to care much about, and then I strapped her in and the panic started.

She was freaking out because she couldn't see out the front but I managed to convince her that looking out the side was just as good. Note to self, next time bring a booster seat. One hurdle successfully passed, it was time to start the engine. I had had her watch a few engine starts from the outside so she could hear the noise, and I told her it would be even louder inside but that our headsets would help. I hadn't told her about the vibrations, but it didn't matter. She was entirely unfazed by the whole thing. Even when I started taxiing she was calm and relaxed.

During my run-up tests, she just sat quietly while I talked her through what I was doing. My left magneto was losing 250 to 300 rpm so I tried to clean it out. Not having done this in a long time, my technique was lacking and I couldn't get it fixed. So I taxied back to the club and had an instructor look at it. He fixed it for me and told me what I was doing wrong, and we were once again on our way. I did a full run-up again just to be safe and all was well.

After a final confirmation that she really wanted to do this and she wasn't scared, I took the runway and applied full throttle.

I was concentrating really hard on flying to perfection and being as conservative as possible, but when the wheels left the ground, I made sure I shared with her how much fun I was having and how relaxed I was, hoping she'd mimic me. When we got about midfield downwind, I hear a little voice asking if we can land now. I was planning on just staying in the pattern today (no sense in trying to go on a trip if she can't handle it) so I said yes of course we can land, and we did. Knowing now that she was terrified, I was really trying to fly my best. I made an absolutely gorgeous landing (if I may say so myself), turned off the runway and started cleaning up. Now that we were on the ground, she let me have it saying how horrible it was and how she's never going in a plane again. I'm kind of saddened by that, wondering if it was my flying that was the problem or just flying at all.

When I parked by the pump, the guy from the club came out to meet me because the previous renter failed to put the credit card back. Naturally, he started asking how the first flight was, and all of the sudden it was wonderful! She told him she was really scared but she loved it and wanted to go back up. So instead of refueling we went back out for another lap. This time the experience was entirely different.

I gave her the camera we had brought along and she took picture after picture after picture. After landing, I opened my window and then reached over and opened hers and fresh air came flooding in. She thanked me for doing that which I found amusing because when we started this whole ordeal, she wouldn't let me taxi with the window open for fear of whatever a six year old thinks might happen if you taxi with the window open. But after half an hour or so of baking in that oven, those fears were gone.

"Again! Again!" she cried, and so again we went. She's really liking it now, still snapping away saying ooh look at this and wow look at that. She got so excited that she forgot to stop talking when people were talking on the radio. I gave her a stern reminder and she didn't do it again but she sure filled in all the gaps between radio calls!

After landing, she wanted to go around again but she also wanted to go show all her photos and tell her stories so we decided to call it a day. I went back over to the pumps and this time actually refueled. And then I decided to pull it over to the parking spot instead of wasting 0.1 hours taxiing it. That was quite a workout! She asked if she could help and I said yes even though I knew she'd be no help at all. I was pulling on the prop and she was on the side "pushing" on the strut.

Then she started to get distracted and was looking down at the camera she had in her other hand. I cautioned her to pay attention and she looked up to acknowledge me. I'm not entirely sure what happened next. Maybe she wandered closer to the airplane which would be natural if she was looking at me, or perhaps she stopped momentarily. Either way, she got hit by the wheel and went down.

I rushed over to her and asked if she was okay to which she calmly said no. A second later, she was bawling her eyes out. I picked her up, ran her over to a chair in front of the club, and finished putting the plane away. When I got back to her, she was calm again. I told her I needed to go inside to do some paperwork and asked if she wanted to come with me but as soon as she stood up the crying started again. Now I was really scared. I had originally thought that the wheel had just knocked her over, but now I'm wondering if it ran over her. That would be quite a lot of weight for young bones but there was no noticeable swelling. I finished up as quickly as possible and took her to get looked at.

She's fine. It's just a sprain and she's already joking about it. (phew!)