Eyes closed and palms sweating, I felt the Cirrus SR20 prop plane lift off the runway at Van Nuys Airport.
I like flying. It’s the takeoffs and landings that make me nervous.
Making me even more nervous on this particular Friday afternoon was that the cockpit window was right in front of me.
The sensation of leaving the ground is enough to cause sweaty palms and my throat to tighten.
I don’t need to actually see it happen; to watch the runway drop away as the plane climbs above the Valley and then banks to the right under the deft touch of pilot Jason Price.
Later, circling above the Newhall Pass, the snow-covered peaks of the San Bernardino Mountains off in the distance, I feel calm, as I should have from the start.
Price, after all, has logged 4,000 hours of flying time, plus he took me up in a plane that has its own parachute.
In the event of an emergency, a pull on a handle in the ceiling of the cockpit deploys a parachute that brings the airframe to the ground. The plane’s landing gear and seats are designed to absorb the impact.
“The aircraft is totaled but you walk away,” Price said.
The parachute is one of the safety features of the SR20 that make it the preferred plane for Price to teach student pilots through his flight school Mach 1 Aviation.
Buzzing above the Valley at 4,000 feet, Price related that two current students are a couple in which the wife was deathly afraid of flying, let alone learning how to pilot a plane herself.
But that changed when she learned about the parachute on the Cirrus, a standard piece of equipment for the four-seat craft.
For years the Cessna 172 has been the standard flight trainer for student pilots. Price, however, has a preference for the Cirrus and the peace of mind the parachute and spin-resistant wing structure gives to those on board.
It is faster, safer, more efficient and looks better than the Cessna, Price said.
His vision for Mach 1, which opened in November, is to provide effective training in the best available training aircraft.
Mach 1 has two SR20s available for training and rental with more to come. The instructors are Price and four part-timers.
Trainees include aircraft owners who want to learn how to fly themselves, Price said.
These tend to be people of means expecting a certain level of service, be it from the company managing their planes or the flight school they attend.
Operating at Van Nuys from space at the Hawker Beechcraft fixed-base operation makes those clients that much closer.
If they can take the controls of a small plane like the Cirrus it makes it easier for a day trip to a business meeting or to take time off at a vacation home.
“They want to pilot their own aircraft to do that,” Price said.