Pity, but it's true. And now, after 15 years of sitting on the ground, gazing wistfully at the sky, I was ready to take off once again. You know, shoot some landings - get current. But I was in for a couple of surprises. First was all the stuff I didn't remember. Second was the stuff I'd never learned.
Preflighting the Cessna 152 came right back to me, and I was delighted to discover that the old feeling was still buried somewhere in my kinesthetic subconscious. I could actually control the aircraft with reasonable precision. I maintained altitude, rolled right out on the headings, and the ball stayed in the middle. Well?pretty much.
After about six hours, and a lot of bouncing around the pattern, I was staring at the ink glistening on my flight review endorsement in the back of the slim black book that had spent almost 30 years in a box, traveling from closet to closet, all over the world.
It took me no time at all to join a flying club, get into the air...and get into trouble.
"Zero-Two-Quebec, taxi into position and hold." An associate and I were coming back from a business meeting in the club's Cessna 172. "Zero-Two-Quebec, position and hold," I responded, taking the runway on a gorgeous VFR day. I sat there, engine humming nicely, chatting with my passenger, feeling good. Then, a strange thing happened. A light twin flew right over me, about 100 feet up. Suddenly, I realized I hadn't heard from the controller in several minutes. I looked across the shimmering tarmac toward the tower and saw a little green light, shining steadily at me. Never seen one before in my life, but I had a hunch what it was.
"Lakeland tower, this is Zero-Two-Quebec. Are you giving me a light signal?"
"Finally!" the controller's voice exploded in my headset. "Your microphone key is stuck. I've been signaling you for five minutes! You're cleared for immediate takeoff, right turn approved." In other words, get off my airport - right now.
I got chewed out all the way down the runway. "When you see aircraft flying over your head," the controller said, "you should know that something's wrong."
I couldn't argue with that.
Permit me one more.
Every pilot loves to take people flying for their first time, and my passenger was really looking forward to the experience. I, of course, was eager to demonstrate my uncanny aviatory abilities. It was a great flight, I showed her all over the area, and when we landed, the runway was coated with silk.
When I walked into the FBO, the secretary handed me a little sticky square of yellow paper with a phone number on it. "Jim wants you to call him in the tower." Hmmm. I didn't know what bad news a message like that can be. I was sure he wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed my technique in the pattern. So I called, and introduced myself.
Jim asked me something that made my stomach lurch. "Did I give you clearance to land?"
Is this a trick question? I thought for a second, replaying the approach in my mind. For the life of me, I couldn't remember having heard those three magic words, "Cleared to land."
"Uhh...I guess not." Landing without clearance probably wasn't the dumbest thing anybody had ever done in an airplane, but it was certainly the dumbest thing I'd ever done.
Jim and I had a nice long talk, and when I hung up, I engaged in a serious bout of self-evaluation. Problem was, on coming back to flying after 15 years, I was having so much fun flying the airplane that I wasn't flying the airplane. There was too much I'd forgotten, and too much I didn't even know. I mean, I could fly okay, but I was no pilot. Because I care about my own safety at least as much as everybody else's, I've started to become one - a pilot, that is.
Flying will punish inattention, lack of skill, poor judgment, and stupidity, but it also lets you get away with an awful lot. You can climb at a lot of speeds besides VX or VY and still get to altitude. You can land at a lot of speeds, too, besides the recommended one, and still get it on the ground...if the runway's long enough. And most times, if you're flying a couple hundred feet high or low, and the airspace isn't crowded, well, you can get away with that, too.
When I stopped flying I was a low-time private pilot. Now, 15 years later, I'm still a low-time private pilot, but I'm not nearly as invulnerable as I used to think I was. I have a lot more reasons to stay alive, and a heightened sense of responsibility. So I asked myself some critical questions: Did I know what every symbol on the sectional chart meant? What was that emergency frequency again? What's the best glide speed for this airplane?
What's all this about airspace requirements? (I won't even mention the time I flew into Class C without radio contact. Magenta circle? What magenta circle?) What about working in the ATC system? When I got my pilot certificate 30 years ago, at an airport in the middle of nowhere, there was no Class C airspace, no radar advisories. Now is better. And safer. (In Florida, a special flight following service exists just for trips across the Everglades. Good thing, too. There's a whole lot of nothing down there.)
If I couldn't answer the critical questions (like what's inside those blue circles), I went out and got the learning. I piled up some dual-instruction hours in more complex aircraft to develop the control and discipline and respect for the machine I felt I lacked. I bought a brand-new private pilot textbook and started my own personal ground school, right from "the four forces of flight."
I dusted off the trusty old E6B, too, and figured it out all over again - just because. Then I started working on my instrument rating, to learn precision and planning. And I fly with an instructor every chance I get, to practice technique - landings, maneuvers, navigation.
The Wright brothers were probably the first - and last - people who knew absolutely everything about flying all at once. The more you know the safer you are, and that's why good pilots are always learning. Here's what I learned - knowing what you don't know is a big step toward becoming a good pilot. By the way, I don't do so much dumb stuff in the sky any more.
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