President's Perspective

Helping others catch the flying bug

The days are growing longer, the temperature is getting warmer, and the winds are a bit calmer. It's springtime, and our thoughts naturally turn to flying.

It's a great time of year for all of us to brush up on our weather knowledge. If you already have a pilot certificate, it might be time for a flight review. Perhaps you just want to knock the rust off of your flying skills and get back into the air--or resume the active training schedule that you were maintaining before the weather went south, leaving you behind in a less hospitable environment.

Regardless of whether you flew regularly during the winter months, curtailed your flying because of the weather--or haven't flown at all since late last year--AOPA has the tools to help you complete all of these tasks efficiently.

• Weather refresher. Low ceilings and restricted visibilities pose the greatest risks to light aircraft, but with the proper knowledge, pilots can minimize these risks. A free online course from the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, WeatherWise: Ceiling and Visibility, will give you tools to cope with these two challenging weather phenomena. To take this course or any of ASF's free online offerings, see the Web site.
• Flight review. As a student pilot, you don't need to be concerned about a flight review. But a certificated pilot cannot act as pilot in command unless he or she has completed a review--basically a ground review and proficiency flight with a flight instructor--within the past 24 calendar months. AOPA has produced an aviation subject report on the flight review. ASF's Pilot's Guide to the Flight Review is also available online.
• Rusty pilot skills. AOPA's comprehensive Pilot's Guide to Getting Back Into Flying is just what you need.

Spring is also a great time of year to reflect on how you got your start in flying.

Did you find your way into the cockpit all by yourself? If so, you're in the minority. Although the path to the cockpit isn't impossibly complex, prospective new pilots will achieve their objectives much more quickly if they have some help along the way.

I meet a lot of pilots during my dozens of AOPA Pilot Town Meetings and other speaking engagements each year, and many of you have told me how a friend took you out to the airport one day and introduced you to the wonders of flight in a private aircraft. Or maybe it was a relative who took you up for your first flight. Regardless, somebody thought that you might share their interest in flying and invested their time to give you a proper introduction to general aviation.

Today that interest is needed more than ever. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, general aviation at many airports is much less accessible--new fences and other security precautions make it much more difficult for people with an interest in aviation to get close enough to the activity that they could ask questions of pilots--or be asked to go up for a flight.

But you can share your love for flying. Encouraging another to enter the fraternity of flight is truly a symbiotic relationship. You will gain as much from the experience as the potential new pilot. I've done this countless times over the years and am rewarded differently each time. Try it and see!

If you're still a student pilot, your desire to share your love for flight may be just the motivation you need to complete your training a little sooner. And you may not have to wait--although you can't take a passenger with you on your solo flights, if you're training in a four-seat airplane, with your flight instructor's permission a family member or friend might be able to ride along on one of your lessons. (With first-time passengers you'll want to avoid sessions on stalls, steep turns, or ground-reference maneuvers.)

Learning to fly in a two-place aircraft? No problem. The most important thing that you can do for friends or acquaintances who are interested in learning to fly is take them to the airport and introduce them to your flight instructor. Somebody who's enjoyed hearing about your experiences in learning to fly may harbor such aspirations of their own, and meeting your instructor--whom they've already heard so many good things about--may be all they need to schedule a first lesson.

So you already have your pilot certificate? Invite a friend, relative, neighbor, or business associate; schedule an airplane for next weekend, check the weather--and go! You can help the world learn to fly, one pilot at a time.