I have a few flight hours at the controls of a Cessna-152 (never did took it all the way to an Amateur Pilot License because it’s a pretty expensive hobby, at least in Europe) and still remember just how bad the first few flights were until I got used to it: in a small plane you feel every little shitty-shit updraft/downdraft/windshear caused by the most stupid of things (say, the wind hitting the boundary of a forest or the asphalt of a car park heated by the sun more than the surrounding area).

Lets just say I was green in more ways than one in those first couple of flights.

It didn’t help that the arfield where I did my training was near enough a major international airport and we weren’t allowed to go above 3000 feet unless quite far way from the airfield, because of the Terminal Approach Ways for landings and takeoffs in that airport.

Granted, the bigger the aircraft the less the “up and down and wiggle it all around” feeling of flying is, but it’s still quite surprising just how bad the damn thing is on a perfectly normal day if you’re only 1 km or less from the ground.