Pilots

Like most of us, cinematographer Peter Weschsberg, better known to his friends as Peter "Wolf," has dreamed of flying since youth. But Southern California is a great place to make films, and therefore a bad place to find the time to take flying lessons.

As he approached his fifty-fifth birthday last January, Weschsberg decided to make time. He has now completed several helicopter lessons at Sun Air in Camarillo, California, and is working hard on his private pilot certificate. It isn't often that our "Pilots" column is based on a student pilot, but this one has a special challenge: He has been deaf since birth.

Born to hearing parents in England, he has had to overcome more obstacles than most of us to realize his dreams. He recalls a frustrating day 50 years ago on a double-decker bus in England when he couldn't understand why his mother wouldn't let him open the window. His mother couldn't explain, and that led to his learning sign language.

Using that skill, he conquered other dreams, becoming a filmmaker, cinematographer, sound man, and co-owner of Peter Wolf Productions with his wife, Margaret Sych. His wife acts as his sign language interpreter, and plays an unusual role in his helicopter lessons: She is learning to fly as well.

His first obstacle was finding a flight school near his Ventura County home that would accept the challenge of teaching a deaf student. Sun Air instructor Dave Williams accepted. "I wanted to give him a shot at his dream," Williams said. Williams, who lost his career as a Ventura policeman to an injury in 1996, knows about challenges.

Williams' plan is to first fly with Sych, using the exact lesson plan that Weschsberg will receive later. Then Sych will be able to explain what she saw and felt before her husband flies. Williams is accepting as much of a challenge as is Weschsberg, and has researched deaf-pilot training on the Internet.

Weschsberg feels that the double-lesson technique is too much work for Williams and that they can communicate via hand signals without his wife's flying an identical lesson first.

Williams doesn't know sign language, so he has invented signals of his own. "Since I sit to his right, if I tap him on his leg, that tells him he is too harsh on the pedals," Williams said. "If I bounce the collective a little bit, he knows there is something I want him to do with the collective or the throttle. I also can point either to the engine rpm or manifold pressure. We try to cruise this helicopter at 22 inches of manifold pressure. If I point to that gauge, there is something wrong.

"He seems to be having a lot of fun and is highly motivated. He is mechanically inclined and works on his own cars," Williams said.

Weschsberg faces the same challenges of any student pilot. He knows it will take longer to become a private pilot, but he has enough dreams to keep him going. "Dave is both trying to control the helicopter and also use hand signals - and trying to let go of the helicopter and point to things," Weschsberg said. "So it will take me a little bit more time to master it. I don't mind.

"At [age] six I came over on the Queen Elizabeth and saw the Statue of Liberty. I called her the Sweet Monster. England has nothing like that - especially for a little boy to see - through a kid's eyes," Weschsberg recalled.

His dream is to get a helicopter - it will have to be a turbine to carry all the friends he plans to take along - and hover eye to eye with the Statue of Liberty. But that isn't his only motivation. He wants to own a Bell 47, because he saw one in his youth on the television show Whirly Birds.

Call them motivations, dreams, whatever - he has enough of them to see him through the training. One is to steal time away from his hectic work schedule to take his wife skiing. Another is simple freedom. His student pilot certificate prohibits him from flying where radio communications is required, but if he can base a helicopter at his home, he can go anywhere he wants without talking to controllers.

He is looking forward to in-cockpit datalink in the future that will allow him to receive not only weather but controllers' instructions on a screen.

Weschsberg says he has always been a fighter, and once he becomes a pilot, he plans a fight for the rights of deaf pilots to use all the airspace, not just that requiring no radio communications.

"After that, I can just retire and enjoy myself," he joked. And if any of those goals prove inadequate, he is inventing new ones daily.

"Hanging out here [at Camarillo Airport] I hear stories that just inspire me - landing on a glacier or flying the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is only two hours away. Let's go!"

For information on deaf-pilot flight training, contact the International Deaf Pilots Association, Attn: Clyde Smith, Rural Route 1, Box 99, E-1 Gravel Springs Road, Jacksonville, Illinois 62650; visit the Web site ( www.deafpilots.com); or e-mail [email protected]. For an FAA brochure, To Fly: An Initial Guide for Deaf Pilots and Their Instructors, visit the FAA Web site ( www.faa.gov/pilots/become/deaf_pilot/).