Why We Fly

Small steps produce big results

For 20 years, Ann Tetreault could not step on board a commercial jet. She could barely keep her fear of flying in check long enough to drive to the airport to drop off her husband to catch a business flight. Today, the Cranston, Rhode Island, student pilot has logged 72 hours in a Cessna 152 that she loves, and she considers learning to fly to be "one of the greatest accomplishments of my life."

But it was neither a swift nor a direct road from terrified passenger to student at the controls. Tetreault, a registered nurse, took numerous "fear of flying" courses and underwent therapy to deal with her phobia. Nothing helped, and she might have remained on the ground forever. When a dear friend who lived in Texas was diagnosed with breast cancer and Tetreault could not bring herself to travel to her, she decided to give it one more try. She found a psychologist who treated phobic patients by placing them in a simulator. The practitioner also suggested that Tetreault contact a pilot at a flight school at Theodore Francis Green State Airport in Providence. She did, reluctantly.

Name: Ann Tetreault Age: 52 Certificate: Student Career: Registered nurse Flight time: 72 hours Aircraft flown: Cessna 152 Home airport: Theodore Francis Green State (PVD), Providence, Rhode Island

"I met this guy, and I picked his brain. What keeps the airplane up in the air? Tell me about turbulence. Why do the wings move like that? So that was the start. It helped me, a little." The flight school owner, a CFI, suggested that they walk out on the ramp and look at an airplane. "Then he said, 'Would you like to come back? We could do this again if you want.' I said, 'Yeah, I might.' I went back in a week or so, and we sat in a plane."

Tetreault recounts this as a matter of fact, but it was a great achievement for her simply to be able to climb into a small airplane and sit in the cockpit. She and her CFI continued gradually, progressing to the point at which the instructor could start the engine and taxi around the airport. Eventually he proposed that they go aloft. "I hemmed and hawed," Tetreault says. When she finally agreed, "He explained to me every single thing that he was doing. I have so many [photos]; I took picture after picture," she recalls. That brief flight and continued therapy enabled Tetreault to take her first commercial flight in 20 years.

Another person might have stopped there, but Tetreault, who says she loves to learn, found herself thinking about taking lessons so that she could deepen her understanding of how an airplane flies. In 2005 she went back to that same understanding flight instructor and began formal instruction. As has been the case all along, she has made very gradual progress. She now can taxi, take off, fly straight and level, make 30- and 45-degree turns, and communicate on the radio. She is still working on landings and admits she may never get a pilot certificate. But that hasn't stopped her.

"As I sat back and took some time off, I realized it doesn't come easy to me," Tetreault says. "It's OK now, and that's the [thing] that I've made peace with. If I take lessons until I'm 80, it's OK. The whole thing is just such a thrill for me. [Flying has given] me confidence in other areas of my life also, that I have accomplished this huge thing."

Jill W. Tallman is associate editor of AOPA Flight Training and AOPA Pilot magazines. An instrument-rated private pilot, she has approximately 500 hours.