Now that you are informed on the subject, you likely have shared the frustrating experience of trying to explain yourself as a pilot to people who have not experienced an enlightenment like yours. Try not to lose patience with them. Practice some pleasing methods of educating friends and colleagues about the differences between aviation facts and myths. Remember, these are the same folks that you may take flying in a light aircraft someday.
It may be helpful to think in advance about some of the common myths perpetrated about general aviation to the masses, and how you can use your insider's perspective to unspin some of the more deeply entrenched fallacies. Doing so won't make the myths disappear from the culture as a whole, but it will make your piloting life easier within your own family and social circles. That's not a bad place to start.
"Where are the parachutes?"
The first time I heard this question, I was a private pilot taking a non-aviator for a ride in a single-engine Cessna. I heard it again many times later, as a commercial pilot giving sightseeing rides; as a charter pilot; and as a flight instructor. It always struck me as odd that someone who approached flying in an airplane with trepidation would be willing to bail out of one on command, absent any training in the art of skydiving.
My stock reply to the query nowadays is that if I bring an airplane into the sky, I have a responsibility as a good citizen to bring it back with me when I return. Hence, no parachutes. If the listener were a thoughtful sort, I'd go the extra step, explaining that a general aviation aircraft is a versatile, maneuverable creation that can be landed at very slow speed in a wide variety of places without unnecessary damage to occupants or property.
And I ask, where is the airplane going to go after we jump out of it? The listener usually concedes that this is a troubling detail.
Big Brother is watching you
It was the day after Thanksgiving, many years ago. I was explaining to family members that if someone could give me a ride to the airport in Connecticut in the early afternoon, I could fly myself home to Maine in my rented Cessna 172 and arrive before dark. A relative asked, "What if they won't let you leave right away?"
The question left me speechless and puzzled until I could compute the assumptions on which it was based.
Those assumptions go like this: I was going to be flying home in an airplane.
Airplanes depart from airports. Airports have control towers. Control towers (and towers generally) are places where powerful forces impose themselves on the humble masses below. If the occupants of the tower (collectively referred to in the relative's question as "They") do not want me to leave at the appointed time, I am at their mercy.
Funny how responding to one falsely premised question helps to educate the uninitiated about aviation. This was a nontowered airport from which I would depart. Those present for the discussion did not know that there was such a thing as an airport without a tower--a popular misapprehension about aviation even now. Furthermore, even if there had been a control tower, I explained, my decision to depart was mine, not theirs, to make. Their job is to keep me, and any other pilots flying nearby, from bumping into each other--but that's it.
As for the amazing revelation that I possessed freedom to fly when I wanted to fly, I threw in a brief explanation of visual flight rules (VFR), pointing out that I could fly home legally and properly, and never ask a single favor of Big Brother if I so chose, as long as I avoided a few areas of Class C and D airspace. This was an eye-opening conversation, to say the least. (Not everyone liked the idea, however.)
Big pilots, little pilots
Along those same lines, I worked for many years flying trainers, high-performance singles, and--occasionally--light twins. Every now and then a patronizing soul would inquire if I had ever wished I could fly "big airplanes." I responded that as a commercial pilot with multiengine privileges on my pilot certificate, I could fly those so-called big airplanes too! So could any pilot, private or commercial, who acquired that rating.
This information was received with great surprise. If the questioner seemed sincerely willing to learn, I would explain how pilots are certified through the familiar (to us) system of certificates and ratings, the requirement to acquire a type rating to fly jets or any aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds, and why it makes no sense for a pilot to pay for a type rating unless that pilot has a need for it.
"Little airplane" horror stories
These come in two basics flavors: "We almost crashed" is one. The other kind, told from the point of view of an airline passenger, describes how a vaguely defined "little airplane" allegedly got in the way of a big airplane, causing the person telling the story to be late for a business meeting or miss a connecting airline flight.
One example of the first type of story I heard described a very nicely executed crosswind landing--but the teller of the story did not know that. To him, it was a story of strong winds and inept piloting, culminating in an approach to landing in which it seemed that "one of the wings almost hit the ground." If you think you want to become a flight instructor some day, here is a good way to test your ability: Explain the wing-low method of landing an airplane in a crosswind to a non-pilot. But another surprise may lurk. You'd think that the storyteller would be relieved to learn from you that during that fearsome flight in question, he had been in the care of a skilled, competent professional pilot. More often than not, however, the explanation is met with disappointment--even resistance. Turns out that the scary myth has more appeal than the explanation that debunks it.
Here's an example of the other kind of story, the pervasive myth about the big airplane being inconvenienced by a small airplane that possesses some lesser right to use our airspace. It was served up to me by a friend, a venerable college professor named Bernie. Hearing the story for the first time (but not the last), I was disappointed that a big-brained fellow like Bernie could jump to such an unfair conclusion.
Bernie's complaint was that an airline trip overseas was late departing. Bernie did not know for sure what the delay was all about. But he did notice that a "small plane" seemed to be taking its time getting out of the airliner's way during ground operations. Bernie wondered why small airplanes--probably piloted by a stereotypical inconsiderate self-centered hotshot private pilot, he speculated--were allowed to operate out of airports where busy people like himself embark on airline flights.
Bernie didn't have much information to go on, but he had nevertheless formed an opinion about what had delayed his flight. He had even created an imaginary villain to support his conclusion. So I asked Bernie if he drove a car. He said yes. I asked him if he had ever ridden on a bus. He said yes. I asked him if a bus on which he was riding had ever been delayed in car traffic. Yes, he said. Then I asked him if cars should be banned from highways used by buses. Bernie changed the subject.
Postscript: In a Small Airplane Horror Story, the small airplane can be anything from a two-seat taildragger to a 70-seat turboprop commuter aircraft.
Jets are good, "props" are bad
Speaking of propellers, to the public at large, the term "prop plane" bespeaks antiquity, technical inferiority, sloth, and decay. Never mind that a prop plane may be a cutting-edge turboprop design. Nor that the configuration may suit the mission better than any other propulsion system. In the layman's view, props are old, jets are new, and that's all anyone needs to know. Pilots are judged accordingly.
The "disappeared from radar" report
Flying at a moderately low altitude in a sparsely populated area on a long-ago summer day, I was not surprised to hear a Boston Center air traffic controller call my N-number and say, "Radar contact lost. Squawk 1200, frequency change approved." I had been expecting it. Radar coverage was spotty below 3,000 feet in the area.
But I noticed that my passenger looked uneasy. He finally asked, "Is everything OK?" I assured him that it was. Later he commented that he had become acutely aware from news reports that aviation accidents habitually seemed to begin with the distressed aircraft disappearing from radar. When he heard the radio transmission, he wondered if we had entered this deadly realm.
Thinking back on this, the other day I looked up some online wire service reports about aviation mishaps. Sure enough, there it was again, in an Associated Press dispatch: "WEST COLUMBIA, S.C.--Authorities were searching early Friday for a small plane that disappeared from radar while approaching Columbia's main airport in the fog...."
Put it in reverse
While many laymen's common notions about flying elicit groans of frustration from pilots, and color public impressions of who we are and what we do, others bring a chuckle and remind us how well-trained and technically competent pilots are, from the greenest new student to the veteran with logbooks stacked from floor to ceiling. On the Thanksgiving holiday flight mentioned above, I had a passenger. Preparing to depart, I taxied that rented Cessna 172 to the gas pumps, and shut down to refuel. After refueling, I began to push the airplane back from the pumps to position it for startup. Watching me work, my passenger asked, "Doesn't it go in reverse?"
So, go ahead and grit your teeth when you hear the horror stories, those prejudicial blame-the-little-guy anecdotes, and the rest. Then try educating the offending layman. It'll be a good test of your patience, and you'll be doing your part to keep the misinformation from becoming more entrenched in aviation folklore and--worse yet--in the public policy that governs how we fly.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. A pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990, he resides in Maine.
