Imagine a simple lawn chair

Awning extended overhead off to the sides

Now imagine that this chair is magic and can take you anywhere you want to go

The bare frame lifts and turns

the propeller behind rocks us away from Giggle Hill

Shortly Armand and I are 1000 feet over Ho’okipa

birding above windsurfers

laboring against a steady trade

out over open water banking to a coral head

four hands on the control bar

then he told me over the headset to take it

to do a 360

I did (with some assistance)

The tail wind punched us back over Haiku

toward the pastured airstrip

Buffeted by updrafts rousting the gulch approach

he popped us across and back down

a goose landing on her feet we were

on grass once again*

 

*Even with my fear of heights I felt safe in this craft. The briefing included use of a safety feature–an explosive canister mounted behind the wing out of which two emergency chutes could deploy to provide a gentle-ish drop from the sky for aeronauts and craft..