This morning no flying, just work … I went to the airfield, as planned, we had to paint the runway markings in white, so that it could be visible from the air. So, the day would be very hot and with a lot of hard work in the sun…and no flying.
Do you have your camera with you? asked Catalin.
Of course I do! I replied.
Good. You will be flying with the moto-delta-trike and I will be flying the motorglider to take some inaugural pictures!
Total surprise for me! What was I to say, that I wasn’t flying?! Or did it matter that I hadn’t taken air-to-air photos in my life?! This air-to-air photography is something! The light, the sun, the lenses, how you work with your subject…it’s a whole story!
So, we’re ready, flight plan is approved …. Hurry, hurry…at the restroom, of course. What would I do up there? I cannot tell them out of the blue that we have to land because of my physiological problem. You cannot do this when you are flying!
I empty my pockets, I took off the sunshade from my camera…and off we go! The engine is humming gently now that it won another fight with the gravitational pull.
Suddenly it’s all so quiet…just the wind around us, as if it wanted to make us slow down a bit; I look around, upwards, downwards… I can feel my stomach twitching… I had flown before, but to be aware that your life is hanging on a bunch of steel bars and a cloth and underneath…the abyss. Fear started creeping up my spine…but there’s no time for such thoughts.
All of a sudden Catalin began ascending and we had to keep up. He is flying around us at 90-100 kilometers per hour, then he is up, then down, but never above us. And the helmet visor is bugging me, it keeps falling over my camera; I would have never thought that trying to take an aerial photo could prove that difficult. And why would they make such a long camera strap?! It’s all tangled in my mike and kind of strangling me. Next time I’m getting some kind of a harness for my camera!
We start descending slowly and the pilot gently puts the flying machine on the ground. I hope that I took at least 50 good pictures.
