'It's so easy," said Oracle pilot and "Living Legend of Flight" Sean D. Tucker as I was getting strapped into a red, checkered Extra 300L aircraft - after having just been briefed on how to use a parachute.

I didn't believe him until we were in the air, with the plane upside down, doing a roll in the skies somewhere near the Norwood Airport.

After a delay because of fog and rain, Sun Chronicle visuals editor Keith Nordstrom, his son, Andrew, and I were standing just outside the airport watching Team Oracle fly in from Quonset Point, site of this weekend's Rhode Island National Guard Open House and Air Show, where they'll be performing to benefit Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence.

One-by-one, the planes that make up Team Oracle came in to land.

After introductions and a short briefing on how to use the harness I was now in, Keith and I, along with two other photographers, went up, not in the acrobatic Oracle Challenger biplane or the Extra 300L that Tucker flies, but in a chase plane - with the doors off to get photographs of the amazing formations that Tucker and fellow pilot Michael Goulia fly. That flight just happened to be over some of Boston's most famous landmarks - Fenway Park and Boston Harbor, to name a few. After being enthralled by seeing the city's sights by air, the chase plane flew west and it was there that Tucker got to put his incredible skill of acrobatic flying on display.

I saw first-hand what my experience would be - barrel rolls, twists, and rollaways - all with air show smoke tailing the plane.

It goes without saying that I was very nervous at this point and wondering just what was I thinking when I said I wanted to do this.

Having taken flying lessons, I have the bug, but I had to stop the lessons because of expenses that come with buying a house and planning a wedding. When the chance to fly comes up, I'm there to take it.

But when the chase plane landed, the nerves really kicked in. They didn't get any better when, after learning about my flying lessons, Tucker told me that he was going to teach me how to roll the plane.

Oh God.

Walking over to the plane, I was told to be sure to tell Tucker if I started to sweat.

Why?

I was told that was a sure sign that throwing up came next.

Great. After letting me know there was an airsick back tucked into the side of the plane, I was getting strapped into a parachute and listening to how and when to pull the rip cord, should anything happen.

"But it'll be great," said Ian Nilsen, a sponsorship fulfillment coordinator with Team Oracle.

Right.

Nilsen told me how to get into the two-seat, glass canopy Extra 300L plane - feet first - what the controls and instruments were, then showed me how to buckle myself into the plane.

After making sure I was feeling snug, Tucker hopped in the pilot's seat behind mine and started the propeller.

Once lined up for takeoff and looking down the runway, my nerves faded a little, and once airborne, the experience and feeling of flying in a small plane returned like an old friend. I realized I was excited and not so nervous anymore.

I love to fly, plain and simple. And I didn't realize how much I loved the feeling of being upside down in a plane until Tucker did the first roll.

After flying level for a while and even letting me take the controls to get the feel of the plane, which is much more sensitive than any Cessna I had ever flown, he asked me how I was feeling, and rolled the plane to the left.

I think it was the left, anyway. By that point, I was exclaiming, "This is awesome!" and "Oh my God!" and doing my best not to scream anything more colorful as I went from looking at the sky above to looking up and seeing lots of trees.

After coming right side up again, I was amazed at how easy it really was - just like Tucker said it would be when we got started.

The plane didn't freeze or stall or fall out of the sky like you might think. It just glided, right back into the right spot.

It felt like the best upside-down rollercoaster in the world, and the thought of the white corkscrew coaster at Rocky Point in Rhode Island popped into my head. Sort of on the same principle, but the plane is way better.

What's great, and really the point of why Team Oracle takes people up for acrobatic plane experiences and participates in air shows like the one at Quonset Point, is to foster positive experiences of flying.

If people have a great time in the air, they'll want to know more about flying, and do it more often. The idea of taking a plane and turning it upside-down, rolling to the side, and twisting in the air is counter to intuition - and awe inspiring.

Tucker, who earned his pilot's license in the 1970s, was initially afraid of flying. He learned to fly to overcome his fear and learned how to be an acrobatic pilot after being afraid to stall the plane.

It's clear, Tucker is a person who confronts his fears head-on.

When asked what his favorite maneuver was, he answered: "My favorite is the hardest," without picking a specific example - meaning all of them.

He said aerial acrobatics are all about nuance and any maneuver that requires all of his skill - whether he's twirling or tumbling - is his favorite. And he practices as much as he can, sometimes three times a day, to perfect his skills.

He'll perform in 18 air shows for Oracle this year, all of which take hours and hours of preparation.

When Tucker asked if I wanted to try to roll the plane, I told him I'd leave that to him. After pulling the plane's nose up and rolling backward, flying upside down for what seemed like 20 seconds, and rolling away from the chase plane - all while asking me if I was OK - I thought he'd be better suited to that.

After the last maneuver, he asked again and I told him that I was fine, but if he did another that I might not be, so we headed back to the airport.

Upon landing, he told me that I had achieved 4 Gs, or experienced the pull of gravity at four times what would be normal - and I felt it.

He had prepped me for it before we left, but it took a special breathing technique for it not to feel like my chest was being crushed.

I also got a high five from a "Living Legend of Flight," according to the National Air and Space Museum, after the flight. Not bad for a day's work.

So when you're at Quonset Point this Saturday and Sunday being awed by the Blue Angels or Canadian Snowbird jet teams, don't forget to watch out for the red and green Oracle planes, and know that there's a guy flying the biplane who absolutely loves what he does and wants you to love it, too.

Jessica Kosowski can be reached at 508-236-0331 or jkosowski@thesunchronicle.com