My initial foray into aviation was rife with ignorance, anxiety, excessive amounts of money flying out the window, and very limited success.
And yet I found myself hooked. I loved it. Even when I realized my early flight training experiences were little more than minor thefts of my time and money, I remained committed.
In retrospect perhaps I should have been committed to the psych ward at the local hospital. That’s the obvious joke, of course. What kind of an idiot continues to throw good money after bad in a quest to attain a goal that never seems to be any closer to fruition?
Well, that idiot would be me. And frankly, I have no complaints. It all worked out well. Better than well, to be honest.
As I look back on it all, I don’t think it could have gone this swimmingly if I’d meticulously planned out my career path with a whole team of professionals.
Here’s the thing. Nobody was encouraging me to follow this career path. In fact, when I discarded show business and my life in New York City, my brother the doctor suggested I go to work in the street paving business.
“You could make good money,” he said.
Yes, my own family felt my highest calling was to stand on the side of the road holding a sign that said, “Slow” on one side and “Stop” on the other.
It is painfully true that I was not regarded by those close to me as an intellectual. Often, they barely thought of me as having the potential to be functional in polite society.
And yet, here I am. Killing it.
The best part of my conviction to become a fully-fledged aviation bum is that my pilgrimage to proficiency is never-ending. At least I haven’t found the end of the line yet.
That first flight lesson in a PA-28 in Special VFR weather conditions over Long Island, New York, has led me to some remarkable adventures. There have been good days and great days, a few unpleasant experiences, and a handful of truly horrible occurrences. I’ve made friends and lost friends. I’ve seen things and been places I never dreamed possible.
And I’m still working toward the next adventure, the next experience that I can challenge myself with.
The private pilot certificate seemed like a steep hill to climb when I first started. All that talk of density altitude, various fuel types, Bernoulli’s Principle, and airport markings threatened to validate my brother’s low expectations. This aviation stuff is no walk in the park. But then, there’s not much that’s worth doing that is easy from Day 1.
The longer I persisted, the more sense it made. In time I managed to hold my altitude, and heading, and I actually ended up at my intended destination, both literally and figuratively.
The thrill of success is hard to squelch once it’s been experienced first-hand.
The private pilot certificate led me to an instrument rating. Suddenly I was flying around in good weather and bad, in daylight and darkness. Blue skies and collision avoidance scans gave way to tuning radios, identifying facilities, and chasing needles.
IFR flying in an all-analog airplane gave me a headache. NDB approaches and holds made those headaches worse. Unexpectedly, my hard-earned success at them also gave me a sense of accomplished pride that was so profound I never even considered throwing in the towel.
Multi-engine training was amazing. So much horsepower. Such performance was unimaginable when I was sitting behind a single engine.
Multi-engine training was incredibly intimidating, too. No longer did I have the benefit of centerline thrust. Engine out training introduced me to the bewildering mental vacuum that results when the neophyte brain just can’t narrow down the selection of levers, pedals, gauges, and switches to keep the airplane flying under some kind of control while attempting to identify and restart the windmilling engine.
Somehow, I got through all that. I kept adding certificates and ratings. A commercial ticket for single engine and multiengine airplanes. An airframe and powerplant mechanic’s certificate. A pocketful of instructor’s certifications.
It took me far too many years to take the plunge into seaplane flying. The single-engine seaplane rating was added to my tickets 16 years ago.
I fell in love with flying all over again. That seemingly simple change from pavement and grass to lakes and rivers made me see the whole experience of flying in a new light. In time, I got the pleasure of instructing in seaplanes. The thrill was indescribable.
One of my favorite seaplane flights happened five years ago this week. I had the distinct pleasure of taking General Aviation News publisher Ben Sclair aloft in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Sweepstakes Super Cub on amphibious floats.
We flew out of my home airport, Winter Haven Regional, on a calm day with deep blue skies dotted with just a smattering of clouds. Ben was in the area for SUN ‘n FUN, which just happened to be my final destination with the Super Cub.
Our flight wasn’t all that long, but it was a great bonding experience for two men who have known each other for many years but never actually shared a cockpit. I treasure the memory.
But I’m not done yet. Not by a long shot. I suspect he’s not finished either.
I stopped down to the seaplane base the other day to sign up for a slot to train for my multi-engine seaplane rating. It’s time. I’m excited. The intimidation of multi-engine flying is long gone for me, while the thrill of seaplane flying remains as vibrant as ever.
It’s been decades since I took that first flight lesson, but my desire to test myself, to better myself, to experience something new and exciting has not dwindled one bit. There’s a new add-on rating in my future. There’s a new challenge to accept and a standard to meet.
I didn’t intend to become a professional aviator. I didn’t intend to become a writer. It wasn’t part of my master plan to move to Florida and spend more than half my life playing around with people and machinery most folks think are out of their reach for one reason or another.
I just didn’t want to stand on the side of the road holding a two-word sign while an endless stream of annoyed drivers cruised by. So far, so good.
We should all be so lucky.
Jamie,
Exemplary, as always. Here I was going to write my experience but I find it is a
mirror image of Curran’s. He was West coast, I was East. He went military, and I am about to wrap up 40 years in the airline business. The early academic struggles are identical.
One never knows what the master plan is, I guess.
Hey Jamie,
Great story…although I hope that gent holding the “Slow” sign doesn’t take offense.
We’ve never met, but we share a common background, sort of: I was a contract presenter for AOPA’s ASI, along with Pat Brown, until we were shut down due to Covid…
Overcoming adversity to achieve a goal always makes it sweeter. Rates right up there with “The best revenge is living well”. I know there are lots of great stories out here among GAN readers; it would be interesting to hear more of them. Here’s a very condensed version of mine.
My dream as a kid was to be a USAF fighter pilot. I even joined the CAP…at twelve-years-old …just because I knew you got to wear a “real” Air Force uniform. But I was also convinced, early on, that you had to be a rocket scientist just to fly a jet airplane, let alone become a fighter pilot.
Unfortunately, I was a horrible student in high school …a good kid …but a horrible student. Especially when it came to ‘numbers’: I failed Algebra One, twice. I also couldn’t write a coherent sentence to save my life.
I did graduate, barely, but no ‘top-notch’ 4-year university would even talk to me with my 1.7 high school GPA. I could, however, buy my way into the local community college …where all the lost souls, misfits and riff-raff went in those days.
I didn’t exactly flourish there, but I did crank my grades up high enough to transfer to a ‘real’ college, Washington State University, as a sophomore. I ended up hating Pullman: I bailed out of there after one semester.
Moving back home as a bona fide college dropout, with my tail between my legs, was humbling. That experience was made even worse by having no job prospects, no marketable “credentialed” skills, no money…no girlfriend…
Fortunately, I was really good with cars. I managed to get hired as an “apprentice” mechanic by a guy who owned a chain of Exxon service stations. The job was mind-numbing, but positive feedback from customers helped me realize that maybe I had more potential than I (and many others) gave myself credit for.
So, at nineteen, I started taking flying lessons. I was earning about $30 a week working part-time and spending $25 of it on flying. I took my PPL check ride with 40.0 hours in a C-150.
OK, I actually flubbed it on the first try and passed the next day. (You can read about that flight in Air Facts Journal.) Regardless, buoyed by that rather dubious start, I checked out in a C-172 a week later, and a 7ECA Citabria shortly thereafter.
I began to think that maybe you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to fly jets after all. But I did believe you still had to have a degree. I decided to try a ‘real’ college, one more time …Florida Institute of Technology. Finally, a good fit (pun intended).
I completed the bulk of my civilian flight training while working on my aviation-themed undergraduate degree. FIT Aviation hired me the day after my CFI check ride, and I taught there until graduation. I was twenty-three.
My plan was to apply for USAF Officer Training School and Undergraduate Pilot Training at the end of my senior year. Unfortunately, timing is everything; and at that particular time, the recruiter told me “the AF isn’t taking any more pilot applicants. You can apply for another career field or try again next year.”
I was getting old; I needed a job and didn’t want to wait a year. I certainly didn’t want to do anything else in the USAF but fly. I went with Plan B: I decided to get a job using my degree.
I’d gotten a bit better with numbers and writing, which were critical to my first post-college position as an airport planner & consultant for a major engineering, architectural & planning firm.
You can actually “experience” my work, although it’s been upgraded a bit over time: I was on the team that designed Telluride Airport (KTEX), among others.
Although I loved my job, the folks I worked with, and the opportunities it afforded me …including living and flying in Alaska …I had to jump ship, when, at the ripe old age of 26 1/2, I got a “last chance” opportunity to apply for USAF pilot training.
“The rest”, as they say, “is…” well, you know how that saying goes.
Now, after 46 years of flying, I don’t have tons of hours like most of my airline pilot buddies do; but I wouldn’t trade any of my 3,300 m/e turbine hours, split among the T-37, T-38, AT-38, B-1B, and F-15C, for 25,000 hours of flying between LAX and JFK.
Yeah, I also have a couple thousand in light GA aircraft…mostly as a CFI…including lots of tailwheel and Alaska time, plus glider towing …and floats.
A MES rating is still on my bucket list, too.
I wonder if Mark Baker would let me fly his Beech 18?
Blue Skies,
Tom Curran, Colonel, USAF (Ret)