Waypoints

Thomas B. Haines has served as AOPA Pilot magazine's editor in chief since July 1994.

Over the next year, you'll hear lots about the 100th anniversary of powered flight. Hundreds of events around the country will commemorate the first century of flight. It promises to be an exciting and memorable year.

This issue of this magazine marks a centenary moment of its own for me. It certainly doesn't compare to the one being celebrated over the next year. Instead, this event is a personal milestone. This is the 100th time I have sat in front of a blank computer screen to write this column — 100 headlines and about 150,000 words, some of them more memorable than others. The achievement pales compared to that of some other writers who have been at this far longer. How many columns has Andy Rooney written, for example?

But milestones ending in a double zero are certainly opportunities to reflect, rethink, and regroup. I recently reread the first "Waypoints" column in the August 1994 issue. Titled "Weather Everywhere," it detailed a trip from AOPA's headquarters in Maryland to London, Ontario, for the introduction of the first Diamond DA20 Katana — the first model built in Canada. Previously, Dimona Aircraft had built DV20s in Austria. Weather and U.S. Customs delays hassled us throughout the entire trip, but in the end the flight showed the utility of general aviation aircraft — still one of my favorite subjects to write about.

"Waypoints" came about when I became editor in chief of AOPA Pilot in July 1994. Choosing the name of a column can be as challenging as writing one. In this case, I wanted a name that gave me a lot of flexibility in subject material. I didn't want to be locked into writing about IFR subjects, personalities, aviation business, or any other singular topic. And, of course, the name couldn't be in use by anyone else. "Waypoints" seemed a good choice — I could write about anything and everything along the way no matter where I went. And so it was.

I'll let you in on a little decoder-ring secret. Until the April 2001 issue when we redesigned the magazine, the graphic used to support this column carried a set of coordinates — N41-26.81, W080-23.48. In creating the initial design, the creative director said he would like to incorporate a set of coordinates, suggesting a waypoint. I was going to make up a set, but quickly realized that any realistic set of numbers would be, in fact, a real place. So if it's going to be someplace, it might as well be someplace significant to me. I thought about making it the coordinates for my house, but publishing that — even discreetly — seemed a little weird. In the end, I chose the airport where I learned to fly — Greenville Municipal in Greenville, Pennsylvania. If you thumb through a back issue and stumble across that graphic, now you'll know where that point is.

One hundred issues later, we've covered a lot of waypoints. What generates the most mail? Flying with dogs. I received the most comments about a column I wrote where my family used our airplane to pick up a dog from a rescue league. The big boxer is at the moment asleep on our bed, by the way — snoring loudly.

But on more pedestrian subjects, AOPA members want to involve their families in flying. When I write about flying with my wife and daughters, I always get mail from pilots with spouse envy. It seems that many pilots don't have the support of their spouse, and sometimes the spouse won't allow the children to ride in a general aviation airplane, period. The readers seek advice on how to win over their spouses. I don't recall a situation where it was a female pilot who needed to encourage her husband to ride along. Instead, it's the other way around. I encourage the husband to make the trip meaningful for the wife — a destination she can relate to. I long ago gave up offering my wife a "let's bore some holes in the sky" Saturday afternoon jaunt around the county or another visit to the $100 hamburger joint two airports over the ridge. She's only interested if it's something she or the kids can relate to, so I try to make it an outing for everyone. The act of aviation doesn't seem to inspire nonpilot wives. Instead, they appreciate the utility of general aviation.

That said, start out with short trips on nice, smooth days if your wife is a novice flier. The last thing you want to do is make her sick in the airplane — a sure way to make it her last flight.

Along those lines, what to do with infants in airplanes is another frequent question after I've written about flying with my children. Our oldest daughter was a toddler when this column started. We took her on her first flight when she was just six weeks old. Parents of newborns often seek advice about how to fly with children and how to protect their hearing.

My first advice is to buy a couple of used child safety seats at yard sales and leave them in the airplane if you're an aircraft owner. It beats the hassle of unbuckling the seats from the car and transferring them back and forth to the airplane. Advice on hearing protection isn't quite so cut-and-dried. We never found a good way to protect our kids' ears. As infants they wouldn't leave anything in their ears. By the time they were toddlers, we could sometimes convince them to wear headsets — at least for part of the trip. My daughters, now ages 7 and 9, recently began using Peltor headsets for kids ( www.peltoraviation.com). They like the purple kids'-size ear cups and seem content to wear them. I've never been able to get definitive advice from experts about the amount of damage done to the hearing of infants and children during the brief exposure most will experience in light airplanes. My wife and I decided that on the few times a year that we took the girls flying as infants, the reward of flying ourselves was worth the minimal risk of any long-term damage. Their hearing now is fine — in fact, sometimes too good, unless of course they choose not to hear, which often occurs around bedtime. My guess is the selective hearing will only get worse over the next few years.

Another "Waypoints" topic that generates mail is weather flying. Whenever I write about a cross-country flight that involves dealing with weather, I hear from members who would like to use an airplane for long trips but are concerned about weather decision making and how to plan for contingencies. My advice first and foremost is to be flexible. Don't plan a long trip without the ability to delay a departure or return by 24 or more hours unless you're willing to leave the airplane and catch an airline flight home. My wife knows that if I'm on a business trip in our airplane I'll plan to be home on a particular day, but it might be a day or more later. I've not had to exercise that option very many times over the years, but if you go into the flight knowing that you might not make it back on the planned day, you'll feel a lot better about the trip.

I've found that pilots seem less interested in the details of a weather system encountered in flight than they are in how to deal with weather in general. You can learn a lot from reading about weather, but experience is the best flight instructor. Get an instrument rating and fly in weather — starting out with predictable weather with high minimums and flying into more challenging weather as you gain experience. The best advice can come from the right seat if you fly with an experienced weather pilot. Get to know who around the airport flies a lot of trips in instrument conditions and invite him or her along sometime.

Regular readers have heard about me buying my first airplane, a 20-year-old Cessna 172, and then adding various pieces of gear to it. I shared the eventual realization that the 172 was an ideal airplane for regional flights, but for most of my missions I needed something with greater speed, range, and weather gear. With a mix of remorse and anxiety I parted with the 172 in favor of an even older Beechcraft A36 Bonanza. The Bonanza has seen its own share of improvements. I've relayed the joys and tribulations of those decisions, including the recent engine overhaul extravaganza.

The most memorable columns? There are two. " Conversation With a Friend" (February 2001) details the joy of spending a flight to nowhere on a quiet New Year's Day with my favorite airplane. " Fragile Freedoms" (November 2001) was written from notes typed late on September 11, 2001, as the clock ticked that black-letter day into the history books. When I shut the computer down that night, I wasn't certain when or under what circumstances we would fly again.

I hope in the next 100 columns — or the next 500 — that we won't ever again face such uncertainty.

Fly safe and come back next month for number 101.

E-mail the author at [email protected].