Fast forward to a time when the desk job is no more, and ride-giving has become my occupation. In this milieu the passengers are real passengers - tourists and travelers, not just other pilots bumming rides. Sometimes we're flying ellipses around the local natural wonders or circling lighthouses to the clicking of cameras.
Sometimes it's a gotta-go proposition on a flight with a destination - headed out despite wind and bumps. In such cases the passengers are not always smiling; many would have taken the bus if they'd had a choice. But you load 'em up, cheer 'em up as best you can, and off you go. And even in those cases when you can tell by the looks on their faces that you're beaten before you start, any pilot worthy of the name will do everything in his or her power to make the flight comfortable. Those are the days when maybe only you will appreciate your efforts.
Any time you fly with aeronautical newborns, it's a good idea to blend the necessary with the possible to enhance your passengers' experience. The necessary includes delivering a safety briefing, supervising loading, and instructing the folks on where to sit, if this is relevant to center-of-gravity considerations.
The possible? Such items include your expectations for flight conditions. A little bit of information can go a long way toward making the people on board relax. Quite literally, you may be practicing preventive medicine here. If you expect bumps during the climb, but then a smooth cruise phase, say so. The passenger expecting five minutes of turbulence may not mind, but the uninformed soul wondering if he or she is in for three hours of jolts may not be so stoic. If you expect turbulence to last longer, think of the airliners you have often heard on the radio, engaged in a perpetual auction with air traffic control for smooth rides at higher altitudes. Promise your passengers that you will do everything you can to find the most comfortable altitude. Remember that what is mere chop to you may be unbearable discomfort to them. Many passengers say it helps them to relax just knowing that you can "feel their pain" and are on their side.
Safety briefings sometimes provoke an anxiety response in passengers - and who can blame them for wincing at a discussion of how to evacuate an airplane that hasn't even left the ground yet? But you can usually coax a smile by reminding them not to disable the smoke detectors in the lavatory of your Cessna 172 or apologizing for the fact that today's trip will not be long enough to show an in-flight movie. I am still amazed how many passengers ask, "Where are the parachutes?" At first they are dismayed to learn that there aren't any, but then they generally become relieved that their pilot has no plans to bail out.
Keeping it light and playing the part of aerial cab driver and tour guide comes with the territory in this type of aviation. But the professional obligation to fly your very best can also make a routine flight fun and educational for you. Nuances of technique that you would never focus on so completely while flying alone should be always on your mind when paying customers, or invited guests, are on board.
It was a nice day for the long-haul flight from Connecticut to Maine in the single-engine airplane. The passenger, who had taken a few flying lessons several years ago, was known to experience queasiness, usually triggered by turbulence or stress. So for me the key was to fly as gently as possible and hope that Mother Nature cooperated to keep my right-seater happy for three hours. He seemed content, gazing dreamily out the side window, and occasionally picking out landmarks on the sectional chart on his lap. Then he glanced at the altimeter and exclaimed, "When did we descend to 3,000 feet?"
For me this was a moral victory in my comfort crusade. A simple throttle reduction of one inch of manifold pressure (try 100 rpm in an airplane with a fixed-pitch prop) had been so imperceptible that the leisurely cruise-descent from 5,500 feet had gone unnoticed.
Sometimes the flight-technique textbook and the textbook of passenger handling disagree on how to handle a situation. Today I have a full load of sightseers aboard, and we are preparing to land. The first part of the ride was bumpy as we passed on the downwind side of a mountain. The second half smoothed out as we penetrated the stable air just off the coast. I know that rightly or not, many passengers judge an entire flight, and the skill of their pilot, by that instant when the wheels brush the runway. I am resolved that wheels merely brushing the runway is exactly what will happen. We cross the threshold, and I idle the throttle and begin a roundout. But rather than continue to feed in back pressure until I have hauled the yoke out of the panel, thus touching down at minimum speed as I would normally do, I cheat. No more than a foot off the ground, I ease in a few extra rpm and relax just a little of my back pressure. Holding this attitude, I fly the ship a half-mile down the runway, until we are within a few hundred feet of our turnoff at the sightseeing ramp. Only then do I ease out some, but not all, of the power. The sight of mains beginning to roll is the only discernible evidence that touchdown has occurred. The passengers erupt in applause. I am happy that they are happy - but in my pilot's heart I know that the flying gods are smirking.
When the wind is howling, forget about making people happy. Just fly the airplane. The wind is out of the north today, gusting to and fro and causing the pole holding up the windsock to squeal and sigh. The pilots giving rides today are glad it is my turn and not theirs. I know that they will be sitting in their lawn chairs, taking in the sun and observing my arrival, which is about a minute away. The passengers had feasted on lobster before coming to the airport - always a worrisome thought for the pilot - and they have been warned before departure that today is not as nice as it looks. But they are game, and so far, so good. The turbulence is worst down low, and it is down low where we are now headed. I suggest that everyone buckle up tight.
There are bumps and a crosswind. I am part crabbed; part cross-controlled with the left wing down; and very hawkish with the yoke, pedals, and power as the runway nears. The touchdown is faster than stall, left main first. I feed in full left aileron, and as soon as the other wheels make contact, I brake the ship rather stoutly. It is a nice landing from a pilot's point of view-on the centerline, directionally stable, no thud, no skip. I know the folks in the beach chairs approve. The people in the airplane are another story. We taxi in silence to the ramp. After shutdown, they make a hasty exit. No one poses for the usual picture in front of the green Cessna, and no one shakes hands with me as they make for the parking lot. At last one of the passengers wheels around and snarls, "Do they always land like that? I thought that wing was going to hit the ground." No doubt their vacation stories will be larded with a tale of their near-crash in a small airplane.
There are a few other pearls of wisdom to dispense about passengers. One is that any pilot inviting a passenger to come for an airplane ride should take responsibility for that passenger's emergency preparation. In winter, dress for, and insist that the passenger dress for, maximum comfort - in other words, a night or two in the woods pending rescue. Carry the necessary implements to stay warm and be found.
Another thing is to remember that G forces as minor as those encountered in a 45-degree bank can be extremely disconcerting to someone who is caught unaware. Flying with a business associate on a low-altitude photo mission, I know that fairly steep banks will keep us over the target and away from the few houses nearby. I tell him my plan. He is willing to "try one out" to see how it feels, and it is fine. But he concedes that had I simply rolled into the turn and increased the load factor without warning, he would have become apprehensive.
Airsickness. I won't repeat the standard advice everyone who flies learns about how to help a passenger avoid that malady. But do remember to keep an airsickness bag discreetly at hand. If you can't haul it out and hand it, ready to use, to an ailing soul in about five seconds while also flying, navigating, and talking on the radio, you don't have it handy. Remember that most passengers will try to hide how they feel until it is almost too late. Once the passenger has capitulated, five seconds is all the warning you may get.
Passengers, like pilots, come in all shapes, sizes, and personality types. Kids are always fun; they press their noses to the windows in utter fascination; five minutes later you turn around only to find them flopped over, sound asleep. See if you can land without waking them up.
Some people you'll haul are downright memorable. There was the fellow bound for Pokemouche, in Canada, who boarded with three dozen roses and some baggage. His plan was to propose to his sweetheart on arrival, and there was no florist at the destination. Then there was the overstressed New York lawyer I picked up at the airline terminal late one evening under a bright full moon. I plunked him down in the right seat of a Skyhawk and flew him down to the Maine coast - a 15-minute flight. Less than four hours into his vacation, and unwinding, he was fascinated by it all. "How high are we? How big are those lakes down there?" We chatted a bit. Turned out we grew up a block apart in the Bronx.
I never had a passenger like the one that my colleague Harding tells of, who waited until they had been airborne for 15 minutes before asking if he could take off his clothes. Harding refused the request, citing "regulations."
I do recall a fellow whose tip, following a photo shoot, almost equaled the entire cost of the flight. He offered it happily "for bringing us back alive." There was also the silent policeman who never did say what he was looking for from the air one fall day.
And my logbook also records that many summers past, I was kissed by a New Jersey citizen named Diana for letting her fly the airplane for a few minutes. She said it was something that she had never in her life expected to do. I assume she was talking about the flying.
