My Pilot Hat - Part Two

One might think that the first experience as a student pilot would have been enough to keep me away but soon I was back at the air field, this time knowing what to expect. I dressed more comfortably in a bathing suit with shorts remembering how hot the inside of the plane was as we sat on the runway. The air would cool off the higher you climbed but the wait for take off could be more than twenty or thirty minutes.

After we went over the required class time studying aeronautics, I grabbed my cushions and headed for the Sundowner. Following the checklist, we went over the preflight details and then climbed into the tiny cockpit. I was ready for that thrill of take off, confident that my instructor (let's call him Bill) was right about getting us out of any peril and we took off. As we climbed toward the east the tower came on and said that we had traffic at 11 o'clock. TRAFFIC! What the heck would we do? I scanned the sky but saw nothing. Bill calmly pointed out a tiny, little speck, way, way off in the sky. The plane was not even close but the tower had to let us know. With the relief of avoiding a midair collision we headed up river, toward the huge cooling towers sitting on the banks of the Ohio. Bill taught me to bank the plane, fixing my wing on a spot below and then turning the plane sideways and coming around the spot. This day the spot was the cooling towers at Beckjord. We'd bank one way, then come around and bank the other. Before long I was starting to turn green and feeling quite nauseous. As usual, Bill calmly just told me to head back to the airport. I landed much smoother this time, actually above the correct runway and prompted ran to the office to hurl.

My third lesson was equally hot and equally nauseating. The lesson of the day was to work on maintaining altitude. I handled this task remarkably well and was given an "A" for my consistency. I told Bill that I had grown up handling the rudders of boats and he explained the correlation and said that could be why I was able to fly so smoothly. I believed that it was only so I'd be less sick. As I started to turn green again, we headed back, still not making the entire 45 minutes of my lesson.

Between lessons I had to fly home from Cleveland in a small commuter plane. The company I was with had driven us up and decided to let us take an airline instead of having someone come back up for us. I was excited as we boarded and I saw the tiny plane had no co-pilot. I showed the pilot my student license and he offered me the co-pilot seat. It was too good to be true! I climbed in the seat and immediately was overwhelmed by the gauges, lights and instrumentation. Even more overwhelming was the fact that I was even shorter in this airplane and couldn't even see over the instrument console! If I stretched I could look out of the side window but I had to lean hard against my seat belt. To top it all, when we did take off and were in the air, the pilot put the plane on autopilot and proceeded to read a magazine. So much for learning from the professionals. He offered to make a note in my pilot log but I didn't figure it would matter much.

My fourth lesson was also my final lesson. I learned how to stall. I have never like roller coasters and don't enjoy rides at amusement parks. None of them could have come close to forcing a perfectly good airplane to stop in mid-air, just so you could drop your nose and head for the earth, hoping that it would jump start the engine. When the stall buzzer started to buzz, my stomach would sink and I would have to force myself to aim the airplane into a stall. Bill cautioned me to keep it straight and not go into a spin. HA! Why would I want to do that? Certain that I was about to throw up all over him, he decided that we would make the stall lesson a short one and we headed back to the airport. As my girls ran towards me proud that their mother could fly and airplane, I was thinking about how crazy I was.

My next lesson would have been to wear a hood which prevents you from seeing outside the plane and promotes the use of instruments. My lack of height had already produced "hood" lessons and I said goodbye to my instructor. As usual, Bill chuckled and said that he never thought I would have gotten as far as I had. There was no solo in my future! Especially since I couldn't stop the plane when we landed!