Finally, R. Kelly and I have something else in common.
Although, I don't just believe I can fly. I have proof.
While working on the piece in the May/June Success about business owners who fly their own planes, I was asked an intriguing question from a representative of Project Pilot, the mentoring program of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).
“Would you like to take a test flight?”
There is a great photo journal from editor/photographer/backseat co-pilot David Napuk of our flyboy adventures.
Off we go into the wild blue yonder...
Naturally, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to climb to the heavens, to live out my Amelia Earhart fantasy and to finally be able to quote Top Gun with authority. I assumed the test flight would be akin to when a father lets his young child sit on his lap and steer the car, a token feel for what manning an aircraft is all about.
I was wrong.
My co-pilot, managing editor David Napuk, and I met up with our instructor Richard Orentzel at the Westchester Airport. Orentzel, a former schoolteacher and aspiring poet, teaches at the Panorama Flight Service. Our training plane was a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, a 180hp single-engine aircraft. On a gray afternoon in a light drizzle, I climbed into the cockpit --- nervous, but assuming Orentzel would do most of the work. Nope.
I flailed at first. The trickiest maneuver is trying to use the foot pedals to steer the Skyhawk on the ground, but I finally got us into position. We hit the runway, pushed the throttle to max, and all the sudden—
I was flying.
I was flying an airplane at 3,500 feet in a 30 mph headwind for 50 miles on a trip to Brookhaven, Long Island and back.
And it was awesome.
I was mesmerized by the simplicity of flying, by the rush of controlling the yoke like a real pilot, by the beauty of the Long Island Sound, by the sheer number of golf courses in the tri-state area and (thanks to David’s acute sense of sight) by knowing we were more than twice the height of the Empire State Building, poking its head through the clouds in the distance.
I was rattled by the voices in my head (of course I mean the air traffic controllers) and by having to locate the other planes on the horizon, but all in all, I felt good. The first take-off was a bit abrupt, but both the landings 
were as smooth as a single malt (which I used to toast myself later.)
And if you don’t believe me, ask the expert. “Patrick had a tendency to pull to the right,” says Orentzel, “but he seemed relaxed and it shows he’d be very good at this.”
Take that, Maverick.
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