SHIELDS: My first flight was successful

I got a call from Kyle Barron at The Greater Jackson Chamber last month.

He was letting me know about an event that was happening at McKellar-Sipes in a couple weeks.

"We're welcoming Denver Air to Jackson," Barron said. "There will be a flight and everything. And we're signing up members of media to be a part of that flight."

"Well don't worry about me," I replied.

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked.

"I don't fly," I said.

"What do you mean you don't fly?" Kyle asked.

It was at that point I began to get sarcastic.

"Well, you know that thing you brought up? The whole going into a plane and flying in the air in it? I don't do that," I explained, not even trying to hide the sarcasm because Kyle apparently doesn't understand words and definitions. I explained it to him with a story. Multiple times, I have driven my wife and kids to Memphis for them to get on a plane and fly to Florida to see my in-laws. I went on the trip too, but I drove through Alabama and got there the next day. I don't ride roller-coasters above a certain height because I'm not a fan of the sharp drops at the beginning or end.

To cut to the chase of this part of the story, Kyle talked me into not turning it down yet, but at least thinking about it.

I talked with my wife about it. And honestly I always thought if I ever flew, she'd be there with me. She said she didn't mind not being there for this moment, but she did want video of me crying. 

But she was also cautious about me having my first flying experience in what she called "a large puddle jumper." She was worried the thing would shake, rattle and roll at the first sign of turbulence and I'd never want to fly again.

I saw Kyle two or three times over the course of the next couple of weeks at different assignments. Every time he'd try to talk me into it.

Eventually he did - if for nothing else, this story.

So I said yes, and dismissed the thought of this assignment for the most part because the assignment was placed well on the day after Election Day, so I had something else to think about before then.

Then the day came, and I was OK. I had work to get done to get last week's paper out. It was completed, then Kyle sent a text about an hour before we were to be at the airport: "Happy Jet Day! Just a friendly reminder that we will start allowing people into the secure area at 1PM. Please plan to arrive at that time. Also, we are in a JET so we fly no matter the weather ;) See you soon! - KB"

One of the conversations we had was that the weather would be nice that day because it had been for much of the previous two months (except for when it rained on Friday nights during football games), and it would be what they call a "Chamber of Commerce Day" when the weather is perfect. So the weather thing threw me a bit. Also, that was the signal that this is real and it's planned to actually happen.

I made my way from Medina to the airport, about a 30-minute drive that felt like forever. The nerves began to build more as I made my way on the off-ramp at Exit 76 that takes you to TDOT, Georgia-Pacific and the airport.

I parked my van and decided to make a call to my wife. "It's been a while since I told her I loved her outside of leaving the house or hanging up the phone. She'll appreciate the tender moment before I do this," I thought.

Instead, she put me on speaker phone and made fun of me with her co-workers there in the room with her.

"Well I was going to tell you I loved you in case this is my last chance to say it, but never mind that now," I said when the laughing on the other end of the phone died down.

I got to the hangar where the Chamber folks and airport staff had a nice party planned out while we waited for the plane to land, go through its normal checklists between flights and then board.

A few people made conversation with me. A couple people noticed I was different on this day.

"Is there something wrong?" one person asked.

"Well I feel like I'm about to climb into a metal tube that will carry me and 49 others to our horrific death this afternoon," is what I wanted to say.

What I actually said was something like, "I've never flown before and I'm a little nervous."

Old Country Store catered the party, and I wasn't eating or drinking anything. That was a dead giveaway to anyone who knows me that something wasn't right.

Then the plane landed. Everyone clapped from the hangar as we watched it taxi our way. 

The line assembled to board. Even for this flight, we had to show ID. I left my wallet in my van, so I had to go back and get it.

I'll be honest, the thought crossed my mind to get in the van, crank it up, turn it toward the highway and not look back. If I hadn't left my laptop in the hangar, I probably would've.

But I returned, got checked in and headed toward the plane.

A couple of staffers approached me.

"Hey, we're with Denver Air and Kyle tells us you've never flown before."

So he's warning people about the 43-year-old toddler that could start crying at any second once we get buckled up.

I'm one of the last ones in line to board, and the pilot, Denver Air VP Jon Coleman, is right behind me. One of the staffers who approached me earlier lets him know he's got a first-timer on the flight.

"You nervous?" Jon asked.

"That depends," I said. "Are you?"

Jon wasn't. I still was. But I would've been exponentially more so if he had been.

I get on the plane, and I was about to take the seat in the front row next to State Representative Chris Todd. But then I remembered that his wife, Melissa, was right behind me in line and he’d probably rather sit next to her.

I kept walking, looking for an open seat to sit in - feeling like Forrest Gump getting on the school bus.

I found two seats open on the row in front of the back row. I looked around to see if anyone wanted that window seat, but most everyone else had seated.

"I might as well embrace all of this," I thought as I sat in the window seat.

I was surrounded by good people on the plane. Kyle and Lindsay Dawkins, also from The Chamber, sat in front of me. Lindsay was directly in front of me (that will be an important detail later). The Chamber's Mandy White was directly behind me sitting next to a gentleman from one of the companies who helped with the rebuilding of the very runway we were about to take off from.

Next to them was Kenny Cummings, the City of Jackson's communications director and one of my best friends for well over a decade. In front of him and across the aisle from me was West Tennessee Healthcare Chief Financial Officer Jeff Blankenship.

We had preflight instructions and a few moments of celebration of Denver Air's first flight from Jackson with Jackson people with plans of coming back to Jackson.

Along with Kyle, Lindsay and Mandy were aware of my situation. Mandy leaned up, "Are you nervous?" I confirmed I was but working through it. "Would you like for me to pray for you?" I said I'd been praying for a while but I'd appreciate one or two more. Mandy prayed.

Coleman said we were taking what he called the "Elvis Loop" where he's flying us south to Tupelo, up to Memphis and back to Jackson.

We get buckled up. The engines turn on. We taxi to one end of the runway, then it starts going ... faster ... faster. I feel the bump of the wheels tucking into the bottom of the plane. Mandy told me what the bump was because she'd seen my head drop.

"Hey! There's the sheriff's office!" someone said.

I immediately open my eyes and look out the window saying "Where?" to not ever see the sheriff's office, but instead to see a group of houses, fields and trees get smaller and smaller as we got higher and higher.

"You OK?" Mandy asked.

"Sure," I said, lying through my teeth.

We kept getting higher. "We're flying in West Tennessee. There are no mountains. We’re flying over rural areas, so there are no tall buildings. Why are we continuing to climb?" I asked internally.

Then there were a couple of barely noticeable bumps that made me grab for something to hold on to (because if the worst was happening, holding on to something would've helped).

"We're climbing through the clouds, so those bumps are normal. We'll probably experience something similar when we come back down through them," Mandy said.

We eventually got above the clouds. And it was as beautiful as it was scary. Seeing the sun from a different angle and seemingly looking at a snow white landscape all around us that was not snow, nor was it land.

Sitting by myself, I didn't have a lot of opportunity for conversation, so I mostly listened to other conversations while quietly humming the old hymn "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" because that's what do when I get really, really nervous.

Any time we had the slightest bump or turn, the nerves were getting to me, and I was holding on to the top of the headrest in front of me, where Lindsey was sitting. A couple of times when I gripped the seat, I got a few strands of hair on top of her head. (My bad, Lindsay.)

We got to Tupelo, and Coleman said we were about to turn toward Memphis, and the wing out my window began to get higher than the body of the plane.

"This is normal. It will straighten out in a minute," Mandy said.

Every few minutes, Mandy would ask how I'm doing and how anxious I was on a scale of 1-10. I was at more than a 9 for most of the flight. But in a weird way, I was OK looking out the window and even straight down at the ground below me if there was an opening in the clouds.

After we'd gone over Memphis (which we never saw), Mandy pointed out what she thought was the Ford Motor Company buildings at Blue Oval City. Or maybe they were chicken barns.

"We're at 26,000 feet. Surely chicken barns wouldn't be that big from five miles in the air," I said. She agreed and we decided we were flying over Stanton and Blue Oval City.

A few minutes later, the engines get a little quiet and the nose begins to point downward just enough to notice.

"Nothing's happening right now that's not normal," Mandy said.

"Is this the beginning of the descent?" I asked.

"Yes, but it sounds a lot darker when you phrase it like that," Mandy said with a laugh. Then someone else made an election joke saying that was the beginning of the descent of our country (I guess I know who that person voted for).

We got below the clouds, and I began looking for familiar markings. Coming from Memphis, I was thinking in terms of western Madison County.

"There's the old south Walmart and Catfish Cabin," Mandy said.

So we were over South Jackson flying north. We flew over East Jackson and followed Christmasville Road to Medina. Out my window to the right was South Gibson County Elementary School, which meant we were flying right over my house.

"Kenny! Get a picture of my house if you see it!" I said since he could look out the windows to the left. He didn't see it.

The group of us were flying probably 2,000 feet above Three Way then Middlefork Bottoms then North Jackson. Or we were 10,000 feet. I didn't bring my tape measure, so I can't be sure.

Then we went over I-40, then TDOT, then Georgia-Pacific.

"We're about to land, aren't we?" I asked, to which multiple people said yes.

Airways Boulevard. Trees and businesses between Airways and the airport. Then we were mere feet from the ground. I closed my eyes and hunkered for the bump of the wheels hitting the runway.

I barely felt it. Everyone clapped for the pilot and the safe landing.

"Brandon, we don't normally clap at the end of the flight, so don't do that if you fly again because you’ll embarrass yourself," Kenny said.

Once we stopped, Coleman asked over the crowd "How's our first-timer doing?"

"I’m alive," I said.

We filed off the plane, lined up for a picture. I felt like I hadn’t skipped leg day from tensing up for the last hour. It turns out we were in the air longer than we would've been if we'd flown to Atlanta.

A number of people asked me how I was doing. I tried to be funny but informative in my answers - probably failed on both fronts.

After a few minutes of conversation, I went back to the catering table. Fortunately, The Chamber was hosting another event for local businesses to get to know the Denver Air people, so the food was still there.

So was Coleman, the pilot.

"Hey man. Did you do OK?" he asked.

"Well yeah. My concern was if you would do OK," I said with a laugh. He didn't laugh.

He and I took our snacks then walked over to where he would have a press conference with myself and other local media members.

By the time I left, here's where I landed on this (County Mayor A.J. Massey isn't the only one who can use air travel puns): Did I enjoy the flight? Honestly, no. But I only say that because I was nervous and not sure of what to expect so I didn’t take the time to enjoy it. So that’s more my fault.

But I told my wife, if she wants me to fly with the rest of the family to Florida, I'd much rather fly Denver Air to Atlanta and then fly from there to Florida and leave our vehicle in West Jackson than leave our vehicle in Memphis.

The "bumps" that Mandy said were normal, while jarring to a first-timer, felt like a normal bump in the car riding on Interstate 40 (actually smaller than a lot of those bumps). And the descent and the landing? That part was a piece of cake because you're not coming in like you're on Splash Mountain at Disney World. It turns out coming in at that angle would probably crash the plane, and no one wants that.

So thanks to Jon Coleman and the staffers at Denver Air for a smooth flight. I told my wife when I'd decided to fly that this is me putting my feet in shallow water.

Nothing happened that I hated. Now I'm cautiously ready to jump in the deep end. (I'll still probably be humming old hymns, but we'll theoretically get to Florida in two hours instead of two days.)

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news