The sky is waiting

There are approximately 1 million lawyers and 650,000 physicians in the United States, according to recent figures. But there are only about 600,000 pilots in this country.

Based on a citizenry of some 300 million, the U.S. pilot population represents less than two-tenths of 1 percent. With numbers like these, you could conclude that becoming a pilot must be a really hard thing to do.

Over more than 50 years of flying and nearly 30 years of flight instructing, I've never recommended a student for a practical test who failed to obtain the certificate or rating that he sought. So whatever it took to get there, these pilots had what it took. All of them made it into the club. You can, too!

There's really nothing magic about earning a pilot certificate, an instrument rating, or any other aviation credential. All it takes is planning, study, practice, perseverance, and an awful lot of thought. Anyone with determination, judgment, and reasonable manual skills who really wants to become a pilot or earn an advanced certificate or rating can be successful.

There's no big secret about how to join our club. Here's how.

Planning

Take time to get the big picture before you start. Find out what it takes to become a pilot. That's the essential first step. All the requirements are spelled out clearly in the federal aviation regulations and other publications. The requirements for every level of training and accomplishment are there; start with FAR Part 61.

Once you understand what squares you'll have to fill, look at the training and performance standards that you will have to meet. A good syllabus and the FAA Practical Test Standards for the certificate or rating you want will tell you what they are. Surf the Web, starting with the AOPA Flight Training site. Most of what you want to find out is available for you to read and download.

You're looking for what you have to do and how to go about doing it. Every level requires a minimum of so many flying hours, a list of specific maneuvers, and a specific body of knowledge to qualify. Take the minimums you see (flying hours, for instance) with a grain of salt. It takes everyone more than the minimums. Just plan your time and money accordingly. There's absolutely no reason to be in the dark about what it takes.

First you need to decide what pilot certificate you wish to seek. The traditional entry-level credential has been the private pilot certificate, and it provides you with a lot of capabilities. However, if you pursue the relatively new recreational pilot certificate--or the much newer sport pilot certificate--you could become a pilot more quickly and at less cost. Understand that both of these restrict your flying privileges when compared to a private pilot certificate, but realize that one of them may meet your initial flying needs--and know that either one is a logical step toward a more advanced pilot certificate.

Selecting a good instructor and getting good advice from him or her will help you to understand the requirements you'll have to meet. It just makes good business sense to understand what you're expected to be able to do before you set out to do it. Don't get frustrated by indefinite or hedged answers to your questions. Nobody has a crystal ball. While the regulations say most students must fly a minimum of 40 hours to qualify for a private pilot checkride, the national average is more like 70. Nobody can tell you for sure exactly how many hours it will take you.

Once you have the big picture, develop a plan with your instructor. Figure out roughly how much time and money it should take to you complete the program. Go over the syllabus of instruction for the course you will follow. Look at the lesson plans that your instructor will use.

The effort you expend up front to understand what you're supposed to be doing will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration later.

Study

Early in training, almost every instructor probably has told his or her students something like, "Here's what we're going to do on the next flight. Study this material before you come out to fly and all it will cost you is your time. The other alternative is to pay me to teach you what you should have been able to learn ahead of time through study. If we go that route, it will cost you my fee (say, $25 to $50 an hour) to teach you what you should have studied before we get in the airplane. If you want to do it all in the airplane, we can do that, but now it's going to cost you $150-plus per hour. Which way do you think makes the most sense?"

I never ask my students to do anything in the airplane that we haven't talked about on the ground ahead of time until I'm satisfied they won't be wasting their time and money trying to do it from scratch in the airplane.

Sometimes we've canceled flights when we agree through preflight discussion that the student didn't do, didn't have the time to do--or didn't take the time to do--the required study before flight.

Everyone has lives outside the airport, but study has to come first. If you haven't studied before your lesson, cancel the flight. Use the time with your instructor to go over the material on the ground and reschedule the flight. Or just go back home and study until you can benefit from flying.

I usually ask my students if they have any questions before we begin the preflight discussion. If they say, "No," I normally say, "Well, I've got a couple for you," and ask something related to the subject. If you don't know what you're supposed to do and how the book says to do it, you will not be able to do it in the airplane except at the expense of extra time and money.

If you first understand (at least intellectually) the what and how, then the purpose for the flight is merely show and do. That makes the money you pay to see a demonstration by your CFI in the airplane well spent. It means that the high-priced part of your training will be more effective and efficient.

Practice

After you understand what you're supposed to do, studied the required materials, asked questions, and discussed the plan for the flight with your instructor, the next step is to see what the maneuvers look like in flight so you can try to replicate them until your performance consistently meets the FAA standards.

Athletes often use the term muscle memory. It's a phenomenon that occurs when you've practiced procedures, actions, and maneuvers until they just feel right. Correct repetition conditions your mind and body to be able to instinctively perform correctly.

The reason your instructor demonstrates various maneuvers before you are expected to perform them is because practice, the development of muscle memory, has to start with a visual image.

Correct practice is essential so you become able to perform basic actions and maneuvers without thinking about them, and so you can devote your in-flight time to more important things such as assessing unusual or emergency situations, making decisions, and accomplishing the greater purposes of the flight. In short, practice allows you to devote your thinking to higher priorities.

If you ever come to a point in your practice when things just aren't turning out right or you're uncertain, go back to your instructor for clarification or a refresher.

Perseverance

What happens if and when you experience bumps in the road along the way? It happens to all of us.

When you encounter difficulty, ask yourself whether it's because you're unsure of what you're supposed to do, or because you're having difficulty doing it in the airplane. The two are quite different. "Head" always has to come before "hands." Don't waste your time or money trying to perform if you don't intellectually understand what to do or how to accomplish what you're supposed to do. If necessary, go back and restudy anything you're unsure about.

Especially if something isn't working out during solo practice, take a step back and sort out what you're doing before you continue. You're doing yourself a disservice if you reinforce a mistake by trying to do something you don't understand.

AOPA's Project Pilot may be able to help. Project Pilot matches student pilots with mentors who have been where you are and can help you. Mentors supplement your flight instructor, providing encouragement if you become frustrated and helping you to understand any concepts that are confusing. See "Giving Something Back," p. 37.

So, anticipate that there will be obstacles and setbacks. Try to plan for them and--if you really want to join the club--find a way around, over, under, or through them.

Thinking

As you go through your training, take the time to think twice when you might be tempted to do something just because your instructor once said, "Do this!" When your CFI isn't in the airplane with you, then what do you do?

I'm not talking, of course, about situations that affect safety when you're flying with your instructor and a response is time-sensitive. The purpose of training is not just to be able to answer all your instructor's questions, either. One of the main purposes of training is for you to develop the ability to ask your own questions at the right times, and you definitely won't be able to do that without a lot of thinking on your own as you progress.

Throughout your program, as you fly and study, take the time to ask "Why?" If what you're doing doesn't make any sense, remember that you should always be able to understand the "whys"--or maybe you shouldn't be doing it. Ask questions like, "What's causing that slow drop in airspeed?" or, "That weather doesn't seem right. Can I check somewhere else a little closer to my destination to give me a better idea of the conditions there?"

Those are reasonable questions, aren't they? Get in the habit of asking them. It's called thinking. If you don't train yourself to ask these sorts of questions as you progress through your training, you might not be up to the task when something unexpected and potentially critical occurs when you're flying by yourself.

If something doesn't look or feel right, check it out. Think while you're planning. Think while you study. Think while you fly. Think about what happened during your flight after you land.

Flying is a thinking person's game all the way. It is the cement that binds together all that study, practice, planning, and perseverance--and virtually guarantees your success. Flying is, indeed, 98 percent head and only 2 percent hands.

We're all waiting to welcome you into the club. Follow these few simple guidelines, and you'll be a pilot in short order. Welcome aboard!

Wally Miller is president of an aviation training, consulting, and marketing firm in Monument, Colorado. He is a Gold Seal CFI who has been instructing for more than 30 years and flying for more than 40.