Raven’s a slick pilot, I’ll give her that much. Every maneuver the Merlin makes is smooth as synthsilk, perfectly controlled, without any sense that she’s fighting the machine or forcing it to do anything. On the contrary, it feels more like the plane’s doing everything naturally because that’s what planes do, and we’re just along for the ride. Even the transition between vertical and horizontal flight—when the wings pivot to turn overhead rotors into turboprop air screws—was so smooth and steady I didn’t notice the event until a few seconds later when I realized our flight regime had changed. For the first time since I spotted the Merlin, my anxiety level has begun to shade down a bit.