inVersion by Timothy Poulton

inVersion by Timothy Poulton

I’ll never forget my turbulence terror flight from Santiago to San Francisco with a short stop over in Panama. Sore-knuckled, flop-sweaty, closed-eyed terror. Almost everyone who flies with any regularity has a story about bad turbulence. The lucky ones involve spilled drinks, minor but extended periods of bumps, or interrupted food and drink service. They should consider themselves lucky, and never complain of such trivialities, no matter how expensive the pants ruined by red wine. Then there are those flights that leave the entire planeload of passengers – and no doubt a good deal of the crew – shaken and ecstatic to finally touch down on tarmac. We boarded the plane in conditions I wouldn’t step outside in, let alone fly a huge chunk of metal and within minutes the plane dropped what must have been a distance equal to the pit the Balrog dragged Gandalf into, and I let out the manliest squeal I could muster. I grabbed the armrests like I was getting a root canal. I scanned the pocket behind the seat in front of me for the air sickness bag, but I was too terrified to care about rooting around for it. We dropped. Dropped some more. Leveled out, oh, whew, glad that’s over…DROP. Then up, aaaaand, way back down. On and on, for about 20 years, give or take. “Are wings supposed to bend like that?” I thought. I mean, I knew they were supposed to have some give, but the plane was doing yoga at 20,000 feet. The center aisle was impassable from the food and drink detritus. Blankets and bread rolls were strewn about like a giant toddler had a tantrum. But none of that matters when your stomach flies into your neck and your seat is lifted off your seat. You didn’t sign up for a bungee jump in, and you didn’t expect one. Some people scream, others pray, and the flight crew struggles to secure the carts before strapping themselves in and staring straight ahead calmly, like hey, people, this is nothing. Relax. When it finally calmed down after 4 – 5 hours and the plane stank of vomit and fear they decided to serve breakfast, I politely declined. After many years of flying in passenger jets, helicopters and lite planes I’ve developed a technique that helps in these situations, tighten that seatbelt and lean your head agains the side of the plane if you have a window seat. It will never put me off flying, I have too much exploring to do.

Timothy Poulton: Photos