"Someone like you shouldn't learn to fly," my sister commented when I first told her about my flying lessons. "First, you are afraid of heights. Second, you didn't even dare to drive for the first five years after you came to this country." I came to the United States to attend graduate school when I was 23 and didn't drive a car until age 29. The trip from China was the first time I got on an airplane. I didn't even know that ordinary citizens could take flying lessons. That was unthinkable in China.
"I just can't imagine you actually did it," Mom said. "Remember that shy and fearful little girl? What happened to that fearful girl?"
She changed. And I like her much better now than before. She wasn't comfortable with herself. She didn't even like herself. Over the years she desperately wanted to change. Well, she did it! Once she realized how much shyness and fear were in the way of living the life she wanted to live, she forced herself to change, and it worked.
I imagined this day many times and got anxious just thinking about it. Strangely, I wasn't anxious when I soloed. "I did it!" I said it several times in my mind with a big smile. "The sky is your limit," a friend said once. I felt it when I was in the air. My horizon just widened for me again today. I am so thankful for being in this great country, in which I gained my courage and wings. Pretty soon, I will be able to fly freely in the big blue sky!
Qing Yang
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Pie in the seat cushion?
I've been flying for almost five years and am currently in the middle of training for the commercial pilot certificate with plans to become a certificated flight instructor thereafter (teaching part-time, to return "the gift of wings," so to speak).
As I read "Insights: Pie In The Sky" (December 2004 AOPA Flight Training), I could feel myself getting antsy. I felt I was hearing one of those stories one will sometimes hear from the elders: "Well, I always have had a shopping cart with three wheels...in my estimation it is the only way to have a shopping cart. It isn't a problem; you just learn to load the groceries in the proper balance. Easy. Makes a 'man' out of ya!" Of course, when one suggests to these elders in our ranks that perhaps the solution is to put a forth wheel on the shopping cart, to see the expression on their faces you'd think you just told them that we should shave all zebras and paint polka dots on them.
I felt a similar reaction when I read Ralph Butcher's article. He was pointing out that nosewheel student pilots often end up wheelbarrowing because they are trying so hard to see the runway in front of them that they lower the nose to do so. He goes on with all these splendid "three-wheel grocery cart" suggestions on how to pick a spot off to the side instead of offering the most obvious solution (one that I used and made a big difference when I was learning to land during primary training) -- get a seat cushion so that one doesn't have the tendency to lower the nose when looking over the front of the cowling. (Obviously this is only practical with tricycle gear, the type of airplane the article was primarily addressing).
Save time on this article, I say -- crank your seat up and put that seat cushion down under you -- really, it works!
Cecil E. Chapman
San Francisco, California
Where are those ATC Web sites?
In the December 2004 issue of AOPA Flight Training, the article "President's Perspective: Staying Sharp" mentioned that there are Internet sites where one could monitor air traffic control frequencies at busy airports around the country. I have tried to find such sites and so far have had no success. I would appreciate any help you could provide in my search. Thank you.
John A. Murnane
Hudson Falls, New York
Links to an assortment of sites that offer live ATC feeds can be found at AOPA Flight Training Online. --Ed.
Yeager's flight
I was reading "Preflight: The Final Frontier" (December 2004) the other day when I noticed a small factual error. Chuck Yeager did break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947; however, he did it in a Bell X-1 named Glamorous Glennis. He never flew the X-15 as stated in the article. Only 12 pilots had the honor of piloting the X-15 during its 199 flights between June 1959 and October 1968.
Brian A. Sitcer
West Sacramento, California
Erratum
"Emergency Exit: How to handle non-normal events" (December 2004) incorrectly cited the 1972 crash of an Eastern Airlines L-1011 in the Florida Everglades.
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