Learn to Fly

An Introductory Flight of Frustration

September 10, 2018 by Scott Spangler

Following Santa’s directions, for Christmas my oldest son’s wife got him an introductory flight lesson. I can’t remember any gift in the preceding years that left him so excited. An ICU nurse living in the metropolitan Kansas City, it took awhile for the weather to align with his work and family schedules (that happens when you have four kids). But he was patient, and his eager anticipation never dimmed, until he actually made the flight.

On his way home from the airport he called in a state of agitated consternation. To summarize our hour long conversation, the intro lesson was much less than he anticipated, and he pelted me with a series of questions whose common denominator was, “Was I expecting too much?” As he stepped through the lesson, if you could call it that, the answer to each question was no. What Santa brought you was not an introductory flight lesson but an hour of flight time for a safety pilot posing as a CFI.

My son described him as a “professor,” of what he didn’t know or say. He was “older than me, but not as old as you, Pops,” which put him somewhere between 31 and 64. And there was very little conversation before the flight. He didn’t ask why my son wanted to become a pilot and how he hoped to use this precious, hard-earned skill once he’d earned the certificate. Nor was there any preflight discussion of what they would do during the lesson. “He checked the oil and said, “Let’s go flying.'” said my son.

Learning to Fly and the Convenience Culture

February 26, 2018 by Scott Spangler

“Convenience,” wrote Tim Wu in The Tyranny of Convenience, “more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks—has emerged as perhaps the most powerful force shaping our individual lives and our economies.” From a passenger’s perspective, aviation is all about convenience, especially when compared to long distance journeys on foot or by school bus. But learning to fly, becoming a pilot, is anything but convenient.

As Wu suggested, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it gives new context to an individual’s aspiration of pilothood.

Those who have seen their training through to certification know that learning to fly is inconvenient. It demands a serious commitment and investment of time and money. To attract more newcomers, many in aviation have endeavored to make the process less arduous.

When it comes to manned flight, this is probably a self-defeating effort. “Convenience,” wrote Wu, “has the ability to make other options unthinkable.” Nothing a flight school does will equal another more convenient aviation experience that is now enjoying robust growth: drones.

Yes, I can now hear you thinking, but flying an airplane and flying a drone are not equal. And I would not argue with you. But which pursuit is more convenient? A good preflight inspection often last longer than a drone’s battery, but that seems a perfect match for today’s average attention span.

Before you answer this, consider all of the conveniences you have accumulated over the years and decades to make your life “easier” and “more fulfilled.” And be honest, like Wu: “Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences. (I prefer to brew my own coffee, but Starbucks instant is so convenient I hardly ever do what I “prefer.”) Easy is better, easiest is best.”

But there is a dark side to convenience, Wu writes. “With its promise of smoother, effortless efficiency, it threatens to erase the sorts of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life. Created to free us, it become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way enslave us.”

Pursuing inconvenience at every turn to give life meaning would just be silly. Washing clothes by beating them on a rock down by the river would be more meaning than any one life would deserve, especially during a Wisconsin winter.

Our culture of convenience “fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience,” Wu said. “Convenience is all destination and no journey.” For those looking for a rewarding journey that guarantees the struggles and challenges that give meaning to life, learning to fly is perfect.

Accepting this might be an effective marketing challenge for those seeking aviation newcomers. Make that newcomers who want to fly for fun. Those seeking a flying career are driven by other motivations. Perhaps our predecessors, who described flying for fun in post-World War II America as a hobby, were onto something.

“Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such,” Wu said. “As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices” We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions.” Perhaps you yourself have used one of these words to explain why you fly.

Investing the time and money in learning to fly is rarely discussed with newcomers beyond the transportive convenience it provides once achieved. Wu wasn’t talking about flying, but he could have been. “Such activities take time, but they also give us time back. They expose us to the risk of frustration and failure, but they also can teach us something about the world and our place in it.”

Or above it. Rather than promoting the future convenience of learning to fly, why not focus on “the joy of doing something slow and something difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest.”

Couch this outreaching challenge in a way that will tickle the interest of people who want to stand apart, to be noticed (and that includes just about everyone in the realm of selfie social media). Learning to fly is, perhaps, the north star in “the constellation of inconvenient choices [that] may be all that stands between us and a life of total, efficient conformity.”

It is certainly worth considering because those who fly for fun, for recreation, are the the economic foundation of general aviation, just as the middle class is for the American economy. Adapting the marketing messages to keep pace with the cultural changes and interests is essential for its survival, and one message does not interest all comers. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Flight Instructors to Remember and Forget

October 2, 2017 by Robert Mark

After 40 years of flying, flight instructing and communicating throughout the aviation business, it’s almost impossible for me to remember that of all my flight instructors, I almost allowed my first ago to drive me completely away from the business. Although he’s long gone from aviation, the lessons are still significant enough to pass on today at a time when the industry’s hunting and pecking for every possible student pilot. Lucky for me, another CFI entered my life years later and completely turned my world around.

In 1966 I was a 17-year old freshman at the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation and anxious to learn to fly. I never doubted my goal … to be an airline pilot.

In those days, student pilots and instructors at the school were randomly paired and I drew a guy named Tom. We flew the mighty 90-hp 7FC Tri-Champ with the student in front and the instructor behind.

School began in late September with ground school and the “Box,” a name we’d all attached to the Link trainer we were expected to partially master before we took to the air. I never realized I was a bit claustrophobic until the first time Tom sat me in the box, closed the door and pulled the cover down on top of me leaving me in nearly total darkness.

Why Was Always a Big Question

We didn’t brief much before we began so not surprisingly, the sessions didn’t go well since I never really understood the point of moving a control stick inside a dark little room as dials and gauges spun like mad before my eyes. Looking back on it today, I realize Tom talked a lot, asked few questions and simply assumed I was following along. I wasn’t since I’d never even been inside the actual airplane.

Finally one day I flew.

I clearly loved every moment in the air despite being nearly clueless about what I was supposed to be doing, except for reminders from the back seat like … “what are you doing that for?” It was at about the five-hour mark that things started getting ugly because I just didn’t seem to be getting things to come together.

There was this landing practice session that still sticks out in my mind. Right near the runway on the first few, Tom started yelling … “Flare, flare, flare.” Crunch! The Tri-Champ was pretty forgiving despite hitting hard enough to knock the headset off my head a few times. After an hour of punishing flying, we taxied in and shut down. Tom grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard from the back seat. “Why didn’t you flare when I told you too?” Somewhat worn out I just stared out the windshield and asked, “What’s a flare?” was all I could muster.

I actually managed to solo the next week and was cleared to fly the pattern that helped my confidence enormously. But soon I was back in the Tri-Champ and the Link with Tom and the yelling began again. To make matters worse, he began slapping me along side the head and yelling when I screwed up. With 15 hours total time, I finally broke. At 17 I knew I would never learn to fly. I quit school AND flying and never touched the controls of another airplane.

Until …

Jump ahead five years as I arrived to my last Air Force duty station at Bergstrom AFB, now Austin Municipal airport. How I got there is too long a story right now. It’s what happened next that’s important.

Within a few days of arrival I found the base flying club. Outside the main door near the aircraft parking area they’d installed a small set of stadium seats. I’d sit there watching the Piper Cherokees come and go, some with two people inside, some with just one. I didn’t go into the clubhouse though.

One day, I headed to the flying club to watch airplanes and eat my lunch. A Cherokee 140 pulled up near the fence, but the engine didn’t shut down. The guy in the right seat seemed to be talking to the pilot in the left. Finally the door opened, the guy in the right seat hopped out and shut the door patting it a few times, maybe for good luck I though. As the airplane taxied away, the right seat guy passed me saying hi as he did. Half an hour later the Cherokee returned and that same guy left to greet him. Later I learned the pilot was on his second supervised solo and the fellow who’d waved to me was his instructor.

Maybe a week or so later I’m back out on the seats watching the airplanes when that same instructor comes out of the clubhouse door. He looks around and happens to see me so he walks over. “Why aren’t you out there flying on such a beautiful day,” he asks. “I’m not a pilot.” “Really?” he says. “You sure hang around here a lot for a guy who doesn’t fly. My name’s Ray. Stop in one of these days,” he said before turning away toward one of the airplanes. The gauntlet had been thrown down.

I didn’t go back to the viewing area the rest of that entire week. It was simply too scary to think of being close to something I really loved, but at which I’d already failed. The next week though, I did go back, but only back to the seats.

To this day I think Ray was watching for me because he came out of the clubhouse door and waved … “Well, are you coming in?” I sighed deeply but got up and followed him in the clubhouse door. And that, as they say, was that.

Over some coffee, I told Ray my story of failure. It didn’t even slow him down because an hour later we went out flying … and I never stopped again. I went on to earn my ATP and my own flight instructor ratings, fly for a couple of airlines, a charter company and a couple of Part 91 corporate flight departments. As an aviation writer, I even managed to grab a couple of hours in an Airbus A-380. It has all been just so sweet.

My instructor Tom nearly ended my aviation career, but luckily there was another fabulous instructor like Ray out there waiting to offer me a hand up with a little encouragement, which is all I apparently needed.

Today I wonder how many instructors like Tom are still out there. Trust me, one like him is one too many.

So here’s a suggestion. When you see someone watching through the fence, go say hi and offer a little encouragement to that budding pilot. These already-eager people are the low-hanging fruit for instructors and we can’t afford to lose a one of them.

Who knows, you might just be the one to change that wannabe-pilot’s life.

Rob Mark

Young Eagles Flight: It Only Takes One Spark

August 23, 2017 by Robert Mark

By Jennifer Adams, Guest Writer

A love of aviation is often passed down through families from one generation to the next. Such was not the case for me. In fact, my passion for things with wings has usually been viewed by my family with an air of exasperated patience. “Don’t mind her – she likes airplanes.” This has not stopped me, however, from trying to encourage my kids to become interested in aviation, and a Young Eagles flight was a key.

If you read my previous story, then you know that after dragging my daughter, Cici, to numerous aviation events, it finally dawned on me to just ask if she’d like to go for a flight. To my delight her answer was a resounding yes. We had to wait until June when a local EAA chapter scheduled a Young Eagles flight near us. It was with a fair bit of excitement (OK, mostly on my part) that we headed to a nearby GA airport one sunny Saturday morning. Having never attended a Young Eagles event before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was quite surprised and pleased to see the large number of families already waiting when we arrived. [Read more…] about Young Eagles Flight: It Only Takes One Spark

Look Ma, No Hands: Aircraft Trim Control

August 12, 2017 by Robert Mark

By Rob Mark

As a kid, telling your mom you planned to try something without holding on was a tipoff something dangerous was surely in the offing.

But when I tell flying students to try letting go of the control wheel or stick at times when I first get to know them, I’m actually trying to help them become better pilots. In this case, it’s all about learning to manage the trim control on the airplane. Pilots who fail to understand the purpose of the trim tab — that little piece of hinged metal on the end of the elevator — or the movable horizontal stabilizer, really are doomed to work way too hard at becoming truly good pilots. I often find that many instructors don’t take enough time to explain the “why” behind trimming an airplane.

Most simply put, trim tabs help maintain an airplane’s state of balance, where all four of those basic forces we learned about as student pilots — power, lift, drag and gravity — come together. Alter any of them and you’ll need to re-trim the aircraft to reestablish that balance.

Failing to reestablish that balance of equilibrium and the pilot is forced to hold back or push forward on the control wheel to maintain altitude or airspeed. While that might not seem like a big deal, it’s one more function of the human brain not available for other important items, like navigating, looking out the window for other airplanes or drones, or keeping an eye on the weather.

The Nuts and Bolts

Here’s an easy trick to bring the trim control into your scan, so to speak. Next time you’re out solo in level flight, simply let go of the control wheel or stick and watch what happens to the nose of the airplane. If the airplane’s properly trimmed, you won’t notice any change at all.

But if the aircraft’s nose drops and the airspeed begins increasing, you’ve been holding the nose up. An opposite reaction means you’ve been holding it down. All of it means you’re working too hard.

Actually, the worst thing you can do right now while you’re not holding the control wheel is to begin fussing with the trim wheel. Trying to fix a balance problem by trim means you’ll simply end up chasing the nose in an endless series of up and down pitch changes. This happens quite a bit when the aircraft is equipped with an electric trim button on the control wheel, because that seems like the quick solution.

The trick though, is to grasp the control wheel and set the nose pitch where you want it first.

THEN trim until you feel no pressure at all. If you’ve done it right, the pitch won’t change when you release the wheel. Still not quite right? Grasp the wheel again and trim just a teensy-weensy bit at a time and let go again.

Want to hold 85 knots in level flight? Set the power and pitch for that speed and trim just a bit nose up or nose down and let go of the wheel. If you did it all correctly, that airplane will cruise along just dandy at 85 knots until one of the forces changes. Same works for a descent. Set the power, drop the flaps and trim until the airplane holds the speed without any pressure on the wheel from you. Climb at 85 and trim off the pressure. It even works in a steep turn if you’re ready for it … turn and trim.

There shouldn’t be any normal configuration on any airplane that doesn’t allow you to trim off the pressure you’re holding. If that doesn’t work, I’d say it times for a visit with the local A&P.

One final tip. If you haven’t yet earned an instrument rating yet, trust me … learning to properly trim the airplane will make your training a whole lot easier. Creating good instrument flying skills will at times, seem to call upon every ounce of your brain power. It all helps save a bit more of that gray matter for the times when you’ll need it most.

Note: This story originally appeared in the February 2015 edition of AOPA’s Turbine Pilot.