Flying Together

How to keep your reluctant spouse happy in the air

Scenario 1: The forecast for Saturday looks good, the airplane's just had an oil change, and you want to go flying with your spouse. Everything seems perfect, except her reaction: "Sounds fun, Honey, but why don't you take the kids with you instead?"

Scenario 2: You've both agreed to fly upstate to see your kid at college this weekend. In addition to the in-flight snacks, your spouse packs a neck rest, eyeshades, a CD player, and the Valium bottle.

Scenario 3: The checkride is a week away. You'd prefer not to have yet another conversation about why flying is consuming so much of your time, energy, and money. You find yourself secretly cramming like a mad scientist at the office, in the car, or in the wee hours of the night, long after your spouse has gone to bed.

Scenario 4: Sipping an overpriced umbrella drink, you stroll the cruise ship's promenade deck for a third time. The floppy hat and half-smile do little to disguise the longing deep within, the desire to be flying, not cruising, under that gorgeous azure sky. Is there a way to integrate airplanes and vacations for next year's holiday? If only your family enjoyed flying more.

Does any of these situations sound familiar? If so, you might need some assistance with cockpit relationship management, the "other CRM."

We've all heard aviation safety experts make reference to the critical importance of crew resource management. CRM is generally defined as the effective use of all available resources, information, equipment, and human ability to achieve a safe and efficient flight operation. Furthermore, quality interpersonal relations must exist within the cockpit to promote a free flow of information among the crewmembers.

Let's face it, not everyone is thrilled to fly in small aircraft. If you're lucky, your partner loves to slip the surly bonds as much as you do. The rest of you walk a tightrope, managing the tension between your desire to fly and your desire for marital bliss. Don't dismiss your partner's reluctance to fly as a character flaw or mental dysfunction. I'm going to tell you a hard truth: Oftentimes you, the pilot in command, are to blame. Anytime a passenger steps into your airplane, that command in pilot in command assumes yet another dimension, that of human dynamics. How you manage this dimension can make or break your partner's flying experience.

Now, I want to get something out of the way: I am not sexist and I try not to stereotype people. I happen to be a woman and a pilot, but you will notice this article sounds like it addresses a male pilot and his female spouse. Most pilots are men and a lot of them are married. Also, most women pilots I know have pilot husbands or enthusiastic copilots, so this might not apply to them. This article speaks to every cockpit duo, regardless of the gender, age, or nature of that relationship. These principles can be adapted to your situation without me awkwardly injecting political correctness into every pronoun. And, as my last line of defense, I will acknowledge that I am basing my observation and experience on a limited but reliable statistical pool — my clients.

Our company, Parkwest Air Tours, packages and guides flying vacations for pilots. The trips comprise seven or eight aircraft, which are organized and guided by our staff, the tour guides, in a staff airplane. It's not much different from an outfitted raft or horseback-riding trip; we supply the guide, the overnight accommodations, meals, ground tours, and rental airplane, if needed. Our clients typically are married couples, ranging from their early 30s to late 70s. And they come from all over the globe: Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific, and there are lots of Americans, too. Six seasons of flying tours have produced only two instances where the woman, solely, was the pilot in command.

Moments into our first tour briefing I can usually distinguish between the enthusiastic flying companions and those who are already planning next year's Caribbean cruise. The avid spouses, first of all, show up at the briefing, and usually don't bring along postcards to write or blankets to knit. They pay attention, ask questions, and jot notes like a college student. During the preflight inspection time each morning, they are packing the airplane, cleaning the windshield, maybe dipping the fuel tanks. En route, they might communicate by radio, giving ride reports or commenting on the cockpit view. Back on the ground, they recount the flight with the other pilots and spouses, bragging about how many photographs they took.

If this sounds nothing like the flights you've taken recently, you might want to review the traditional definition of CRM: the effective use of all available resources, information, equipment, and human ability to achieve a safe and efficient flight operation. Let's take a look at each of these elements as it applies to effective cockpit relationship management.

Resources

Resources are like tools in a toolbox — necessary implements that foster a healthy, lifelong love triangle between your spouse, you, and your flying. In the realm of relationship management, these amount to your experience and confidence as a pilot, your preparedness for any given flight, and your ability to react appropriately when things don't go exactly as planned. The Boy Scouts motto states it succinctly: "Be prepared."

We've all heard about flying "divorces" that resulted from one treacherous flight in turbulent air or one forced landing caused by a sputtering engine. You must do whatever is necessary to minimize the chances of things going wrong and, perhaps more important, be able to keep your head when they do. Double-check the fuel quantity and quality. Compare the GPS display with your sectional chart. Don't be lax about aircraft maintenance and appearance. Request flight following from air traffic control. Ask flight service for pilot reports along your route of flight and, for heaven's sake, make one yourself. These are all little ways that we can demonstrate our preparedness for any flight.

Resources also might incorporate your choice of destination. Just because you would go just about anywhere as long as you got there by light airplane doesn't mean your partner feels the same way. You know the interests and banes of your chosen copilot. It behooves all of us to take those into account before, say, planning a couple's flight to an aircraft boneyard, a remote hunting lodge, or a greasy café for the proverbial $100 hamburger. Travel articles abound in all the aviation magazines, and your local pilot association or flight school can similarly serve as a resource for fun flying adventures that fit the comfort zone and interests of your companion.

Information

Consider this in two ways — what information you have and what information your spouse has. In an ideal world, we would glean from every flight some new nugget of experience that builds on our skills and confidence. However, this doesn't mean you should tackle Class B airspace or a flight into Aspen, Colorado, just after passing the checkride. That little document the FAA gives you is truly, and merely, a license to learn. Don't lose your flight instructor's telephone number just because you're now a bona fide pilot. Find new ways to stretch your boundaries, but first do so with a CFI or another experienced pilot before taking your spouse along for the ride. The fastest ticket to an aviation divorce is for your companion to see you getting anxious and confused in an unfamiliar environment.

Other small but important bits of information that will help you demonstrate to your right-seat companion not only your proficiency as a pilot but also your airplane's reliability as a mode of transportation include: conducting a thorough preflight inspection; giving a concise and honest passenger briefing; and triple-checking notams to avoid unwanted surprises, such as an airport closure or temporary flight restriction.

Don't forget to consider how much (or how little) information your spouse has about the aircraft, your skills, the weather, and the like. Talk through certain things before you do them, like leaning the mixture ("what happened to the engine?"), implementing a proficient but scary-looking slip ("why are we flying sideways?"), or approaching the outer marker ("what is that alarm?"). Reassure your spouse that the airplane won't spontaneously combust if she accidentally nudges the instrument panel with her kneecap. Explain that a forecast for "isolated thunderstorms" doesn't mean you will be sucked up by convective activity if you make the flight.

You also might reflect on just how nebulous the whole flying "thing" might be for your spouse. Remember those months of complaining about how difficult learning to fly is, and all those hangar stories of bravado you've subjected her to? Quite likely they only served to alienate your spouse from the possibility of enjoying this "complicated and scary" new hobby of yours.

Equipment

How can we make things more comfortable and enjoyable for our companions? I can't tell you how many women I've enlightened to the reality of adjustable seats. Seeing over that distracting instrument panel made a huge difference to their flying experience.

Think about making a personalized minimum equipment list (MEL) that would instill a sense of adventure and comfort into your flight. Items in your personal MEL might include a comfortable headset, a camera, a seat cushion, a light blanket, binoculars, a small cooler of water and snacks, and porta-Johns/Janes.

Personally, I'm in favor of some sort of copilot's logbook, one that allows its keeper to record cockpit vistas, weather conditions, and destination features, with space for a photo or two. And don't forget to show your spouse how to adjust little things like seat-belt tension, headset volume, seat position (along the seat rails, lumbar positioning, and seat height), location of air vents, and cabin-heat knob.

Human ability

After doing everything else we can to encourage the optimal cockpit relationship, we also must keep in mind our unfortunate fallibility as humans and the inevitable inability to control the world about us. We must always hold in tension the confidence we have in our abilities and the reality that ours is not a perfect world. I have known skilled pilots who because of a lack of confidence rarely fly; yet I've known even more confident-but-weak pilots who fearlessly fly under questionable circumstances. It's hard to say who is more dangerous in the air — the pilot who doesn't believe in his skills or the one who believes in skills that do not exist. We'll save that debate for another time.

Be honest in your assessment of your ability and remember that the local flight school and your trusty CFI are just a phone call away. If you are the first kind of pilot, call your flight instructor and plan a flight that will help break you out of your box. Better yet, commit yourself to obtaining another rating. And if you're the other kind of pilot, call your CFI to help you brush up on crosswind landing techniques and weather interpretation skills before planning the next cross-country trip with your spouse.

Finally, let's remember part two of our definition: Quality interpersonal relations must exist within the cockpit to promote a free flow of information among the crewmembers. Can the two of you communicate honestly about the obstacles that exist in your aviation love triangle? Is your spouse's reticence to fly because of anxiety over the weather, the aircraft safety, the money, your skills, or perhaps something else? Are there ways you can increase her interest and knowledge of aviation, like an AOPA Air Safety Foundation Pinch-Hitter® course, a brief session on chart interpretation, or participation in a group flying activity that includes other anxious spouses like yours?

One of my biggest joys in operating our air tour company is witnessing the conversion of nervous, bored, or just-plain-disinterested spouses on our trips. After the first day's flight through the Rocky Mountains, a woman declared that she'd been "born again!" Another, who had previously spent every flight in the backseat with the shade pulled down, reading a book, ultimately became an enthusiastic flying companion, making radio calls and taking nonstop photos throughout the tour. I am pretty sure we've saved at least one marriage in our six seasons of business. Not only has the joy of flight been imparted to those flying companions, but also the pilots themselves ultimately get the benefit of yet another resource — an enthusiastic and helpful partner.

Team decision making and group dynamics are the lynchpins of safety and enjoyment in any cockpit environment, be it a jumbo jet, a cargo plane, or a Cessna Skyhawk. Don't forget that it was your passion for aviation that was wedged into this marriage. Your responsibility, as a conscientious pilot and partner, is to discover unique and useful ways you might effectively manage your cockpit relationships. Your flying future may depend on it.

Marisa Fay, AOPA 3360320, is a private pilot in Palisade, Colorado. With her husband, Collin, she owns and operates Parkwest Air Tours, a company specializing in self-fly group tours of the western United States and Mexico. For more information on Parkwest, visit the Web site.

Reluctant Passengers

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