Information for career pilots
Recognizing that some of you are interested in the resulting opportunities, we're excited this issue to present our new AOPA Career Pilot section (see p. 53). It incorporates Wayne Phillips' bimonthly "Careers" column but otherwise is all-new content written specifically for pilots interested in flying careers. Your favorite writers are all still here, of course; nothing is being cut from the magazine to make room for this new material. Please let us know what you think about this new section, and how we can make it more useful to you.
Whether you're learning to fly for personal reasons or for a potential career, the process is the same, and student pilots share many of the same experiences--like the first flying lesson. Many of you responded to my recent invitation to share your memories of your first lesson ("Preflight: First Flight Lesson," May AOPA Flight Training). Here are just a few.
"It was a perfect day--blue sky, light wind, and a patient instructor who let me soar on unsteady wings through the skies," wrote Linda Anderson of Winterset, Iowa. "That first lesson, taken to help me understand the passion for flying my husband enjoys, was all it took to change me forever. I now want to soar with the eagles as I've watched them do so often from the ground. This new adventure has taken me to new heights and out of my comfort zone, only to find it is an awesome place to be!"
Charley Hughes of Liberty Township, Ohio, remembers both of his first flight lessons. The first was in 1990, when he shared an introductory flight with one of his brothers in Bowling Green, Kentucky. "The new perspective from which I viewed my hometown was wonderful. I was hooked," he recalled. After he soloed, however, training had to be put on hold. A dozen years later, Hughes moved to suburban Cincinnati and discovered that a high school buddy, who also had started flying lessons in Bowling Green, lived a mile away. When his friend Mike turned 40 in 2006, his wife gave him a gift certificate for flying lessons. "He did the same for me on my fortieth birthday a few months later. What a fantastic mid-life crisis solution! Red sports cars depreciate quickly, after all," Hughes said. "Today Mike serves as my [AOPA] Project Pilot Mentor, so the dust won't have a chance to collect on my logbook."
When Chuck Hoyt was 9 years old, he was riding in an airplane that crashed. The experience left him petrified of flying. In 2005 he took a ground school to help overcome his fear--and then decided to take one flight. Hoyt had no intention of actually flying, but the instructor talked him through it. "When we taxied back to the hangar and shut down I was almost unable to get out of the plane. My legs were like noodles. As I slowly walked to the FBO, I realized that I was hooked. Nothing had ever made me feel so alive."
On September 7, 2006, Hoyt earned his private pilot certificate. "I would encourage anyone who has spent years thinking about flying but has not done anything about it to take that first step," he said. "Since my first solo flight, I have made hundreds of takeoffs...and I can honestly say that none have been done without a huge, goofy smile on my face."
I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Garry Greene of Habersham County, Georgia, who now owns the Cessna 152 in which I took my first flying lesson. "After I bought it I took a cross-country to Lake City, Florida, where my parents live. My mother has always told me she would never fly. When I got down there my dad wanted to take a short flight with me. When we returned to the airport my mother was waiting for her first flight," Greene said. "She loved it so much. She is always asking when I am going to take her flying again." He sent me a photo of N68266--she looks great, in what looks like new paint--and graciously invited me to come down to Georgia and go flying with him. It's an invitation I look forward to accepting.
Over the coming months, some of you will receive a letter inviting you to participate in an AOPA Flight Training reader survey. If you're among those randomly selected, we hope you'll participate. The online survey should take no more than 20 minutes, and the information we collect will be used to make the magazine more helpful to you, its readers. Thanks in advance for your participation.
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