After many years, so many annual inspections, multiple flight reviews, and an untold number of weather delays, it is possible to become slightly jaded about the wonder of aviation. But I suspect you’ll find, as I have, that introducing non-pilots who have a fresh set of eyes to even the most benign aeronautical experience can have great effect.
Politics for Pilots
The profound value of the basics
Who among us hasn’t had a flight instructor in the right seat repeating the words, “right rudder” over and over again? I heard that refrain quite frequently when I was a new student pilot. I nearly used the phrase to its ultimate limit when I was the CFI in the right seat. And I will acknowledge with a bit of humility that once, just once a CFI giving me a flight review threw that term out for me to consider when I’d lost focus for a moment.
For the love of aeronautical surf n’ turf
Like many pilots who have had the opportunity to fly a wide assortment of airplanes, I’m occasionally asked, “what’s your favorite airplane?”
In celebration of the gift of lift
It’s magic. It’s science. It’s amazing. And even if we don’t understand exactly how it works, we can still take the controls and successfully guide an airplane into the sky to experience the wonder of flight for ourselves.
Satisfaction deferred is still satisfying
There is a piece of me that is very glad I maintained my role in the right seat as a CFI. The success of my students feels like a success for me, too. And that’s a pretty darned good feeling.
Look up
Sometimes is pays to look up. There may be a special, highly detailed story connected to what flies overhead. And it’s at least possible that somebody reading this article will realize they, and I, have logged time in the very same airplane, somewhere in America.
The curious appeal of fantasy
There is a place in this world for fantasy. Yet if any of us yearn for real adventure or if we want to travel in space and visit distant interstellar bodies, that opportunity exists in real life. General aviation may be the best doorway to that life, as it has been for many decades now.
An open hangar door, a new life
Having been present at her first day in an aircraft hangar and being trusted to serve as her first CFI for that familiarization flight, it’s been my honor to watch this girl grow from a dreamer to a doer.
Draw a line and respect it
In extreme cases I can lose as much as 50% of my field of vision. That’s not good for collision avoidance. It might make it impossible for me to read a gauge or change to a specific radio frequency. In short, it puts me in an unsafe condition. And that’s enough for me to pull the plug on a career that I’ve loved so deeply for all these years.