There you are, sitting in the flight-school lobby. The designated pilot examiner just walked out the door and you feel a little lightheaded. The still-drying signature on the piece of paper in your hand makes it official: You are a certificated pilot. Then a thought invades your reverie. “Now what?”
You’re on your own. Every decision is yours and there’s no one to back you up if your decision is questionable. The world is literally your oyster, but it is a very, very big oyster and you’re a little intimidated. And this is as it should be.
You know that in 50 or 100 hours you’ll know much more than you do now. So, it helps if you look at that first 50 hours as a settling-in period where you’re not only going to get comfortable in your new role, but you’ll work at ensuring that what you were taught has actually become instinctive and not a shallow skill of which you barely have command. As you’re doing this, you’ll be gradually working up to that long trip you’ve wanted to make since you started training.
The easiest way to both get comfortable and hone your skills is to put what you’ve learned into action by getting to know what the airports that are scattered around your home airport have to offer. If you make each of your local forays educational, every time you leave the airport you’ll learn something that moves you closer to being ready for the “big trip."
Before you do anything, however, dedicate 10 hours to a post-graduate course in aviating: With your favorite flight instructor, seek out the nastiest crosswinds you can find. Then spend no fewer than four hours being deadly serious about overcoming aviation’s bogeyman, the crosswind. Then spend three or four hours doing nothing but landing on the shortest strip you can find. About 2,000 feet would be the maximum; shorter would be better. That eight or 10 hours of graduate work will be the most important in your flying career. Then you can start poking around outlying airports to see what you can see.
There’s something about flying into a new airport that makes us all feel like explorers. Besides being a new runway in a new location, each airport—especially the small ones—has a distinct personality all its own. None is like another and flying between them is like a treasure hunt because you never know what you’ll find. And there are few ways better suited to improving your flying skills.
Since you’re going to combine education with fun, you need to have specific goals you want to accomplish. The first is to become more comfortable landing at strange airports. Even though your private pilot cross-countries got you started on that goal, the more airports you land at, the better you’ll be at handling different approaches, wind patterns that may be affected by unusual topography or buildings, and runways of different sizes and configurations. For instance, turning final to an unfamiliar runway that has a severe drop-off at the approach end makes one apprehensive and will tempt you to change your approach. The same thing holds for runways that aren’t level: Uphill and downhill runways demand slightly different techniques, all of which you’ll learn by landing on them.
Another of your goals should be to sharpen your cross-country skills by leaving your home area and challenging yourself to find other airports. If you have a lot of local airports to chose from, pick the closest ones for your first flights as a new private pilot, simply because you’ll know where they are and can deal with the “strange runway” syndrome without having to deal with the cross-country aspect of finding them at the same time.
A side benefit to this kind of airport hopping is that you’ll soon find airports that you like to visit simply because they have some sort of "cool" factor. Maybe it’s the smell of a surrounding pine forest, or a local pilot population that leans toward unusual airplanes such as antiques or warbirds. Maybe it has a great restaurant or you can walk to the beach from the ramp. All of the flights will be worthwhile, but some will be someplace special.
Step one in getting your flights of discovery under way is to identify and inventory the eligible airports. You could actually make a game out of this, if you wanted, by putting a sectional on a cork bulletin board. Draw concentric circles around your airport with 50-, 100-, and 150-mile radii. Poke yellow pushpins into each public-use airport and, as you visit each one, replace the yellow pin with a red one.
The second step is to investigate those airports using the Airport/Facility Directory or AOPA Airports. The sectional will give you the basics: hard surface or grass/dirt, length, and altitude. But the guide will let you know if it’s unusually narrow, bordered by obstructions, or has any other characteristics that might make you want to avoid it until you’re more experienced. Those that appear to present too much of a challenge will be considered “B” airports that you should visit another time.
An important factor to come out of your research may be whether or not the airport has a restaurant. (All you really have to do is ask any pilot on any airport for the best local airport restaurants and they’ll immediately give you book and verse on every hamburger joint within range.)
Planning the flights may seem like overkill when an airport is nearly in sight from pattern altitude at your home airport. However, getting more proficient in both planning the flight and then flying the plan is one of the major goals of this endeavor. Ideally, you’ll want to pick airports in all directions from your home field so you learn more about the area. Then you have to decide whether you’re going to make round-robin flights involving two or more airports or whether you’re going to make them simple out-and-back jaunts. The round robins will teach more, but to keep the planning and sweat factor to a minimum, make the first few such flights out and back.
Draw lines on the sectional, pick checkpoints, develop compass headings, make up trip cards, and do everything you’d do on a major trip. That’s all part of the training. Don’t just fire up the GPS and go.
Take these short flights seriously. Even though you’re barely out of sight of home, you can get just as lost as you could a thousand miles away. After all, lost is lost, regardless of where you are at the time.
If your destination airport is close, you’ll know pretty much where it is, but ignore that and concentrate on holding headings and reading your sectional on the way, making believe you’re on the first leg of a much longer flight. Learning to identify checkpoints is an important skill that experience helps to develop; doing it on these short flights will go a long way toward keeping you from getting lost on the long ones.
Regardless of how long a cross-country may be, it can be flown as a series of short ones that stretch only from checkpoint to checkpoint.
When you’ve found your airport, you have to figure out how to approach it. If it’s a towered field, someone will obviously tell you what to do, but a small rural field is a different matter. For one thing, in terms of traffic, the smaller fields can be more challenging because they may not have a unicom; some can have a “relaxed” attitude about what constitutes a traffic pattern. Plus, since they often have a small volume of traffic, it’s easy for them—and you—to let your guard down.
If you can’t raise anyone on unicom then it’s up to you to determine the wind direction and the active runway. So, cross over the airport at least 500 feet above pattern altitude, so you can get a good look at the windsock. This will also give you a good view of anyone else in the pattern. Then fly back out, away from the field, to descend and enter the pattern on a 45-degree angle to the downwind. Some small fields are see-and-be-seen situations, and this is a really good way to develop the awareness required for flying in general.
The smaller airports in almost any part of the country are like thumbprints—each one is highly individualized, reflecting those who base there. It’s fun to land on a rural grass runway and find yourself parked between a couple of Cubs while watching a Champ or a sailplane land.
Another nearly universal characteristic of rural airports is the way that new pilots are warmly welcomed. Expect to find yourself sitting in the sun, deep in conversation with an aviation veteran and picking up tidbits of information that you will use for the rest of your life.
Grassroots airports, which seem to circle every population center a respectful distance out, also are home to a wider variety of airplanes than the bigger fields. So, while you’re becoming comfortable with flying and developing your skills, you’re also being exposed to a wider spectrum of aviation. Through airport hopping you will realize aviation is much wider and more diverse than you ever imagined.
It’s during those first 50 hours after the checkride that you have the opportunity to stretch your wings, your skills, and your interests, and lay the foundation for the new life you are about to enter. It’s an important time in a new pilot’s life. Cherish it, as it only happens once.
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