Doubt

Remember the giddy, gleeful prospect of your first flying lesson?

Learning to fly would make you the master of the air and open a bright new chapter in your life.

This was going to be fun! Then came the reality.

The flight started out reasonably, learning the preflight rituals, effects of controls, “follow me through on the takeoff….” Although it all started well enough, it was a bumpy day, which made you uneasy from a point shortly after takeoff. Then came the rapid admonitions regarding airspace incursions; looking for traffic; staying in the training area, keeping the nose on the horizon, the ball in the center, and airspeed within the green arc—the sensory and task overload were overwhelming. But you decided to try it again the next week.

This time it wasn’t much better, fighting with heavy haze, never being quite oriented, and struggling to keep the little trainer upright without a horizon. Still you persevered. Then came the frightful stalls and steep turns. But, you didn’t give up.

The real doubt came when you started landing practice. Airspeed control on base and final became a chase between VA and the stall warning horn. Lineup on final would have made an inebriated driver proud, weaving across the extended centerline with great uncertainty.

It was close to the ground where the terror started. Why was the runway coming up so fast? Why was the stall-warning horn bleating at 50 feet? Why won’t the airplane touch down at 80 knots? You were lined up a second ago, why are you pointed at the runway lights? Your first attempt at wedding airplane to the Earth was a scary shambles—this was not the right stuff!

Still you hung in there. The point where you almost decided to retire your helmet and goggles was during crosswind practice. While the crosswind wasn’t that bad, it was gusty. During that ill-defined moment between I’m almost down and contact with the runway the awful reality flashed through your mind: “I can’t do this!” The controlled crash tested the certification standards of both airframe and tires, rudely awakening the inattentive instructor. You survived, but your confidence was shattered. Worse, your giddy and gleeful joy morphed into self-doubt and fear.

Get some perspective

It would be easy to say that every pilot has been through a similar experience, although it is difficult to know whether the likes of John Glenn, Bob Hoover, or Chuck Yeager ever went through the dark uncertainty of their ability to master the air. The truth is that virtually every pilot has gone through bouts of uncertainty and failure of faith in their ability to get to the point where they not only achieved pilot certification, but had the confidence to progress as an aviator and enjoy the experience.

Will they volunteer these long-forgotten self-doubts? Probably not. But in those quiet, late-night conversations about flying that reach back to their own training, the honest ones may confess that they sometimes wondered whether they could make the grade.

Most experienced instructors will relate a number of stories about students who temporarily lost their desire to fly because of one or more upsetting experiences. In this case the good instructor becomes a counselor, getting the student to talk about his difficulties, help him analyze his fears and doubts, and establish a course of instruction to conquer them. Unfortunately, the instructor who fails to see the problem and empathize with the student may brush over the true cause, thinking instead that since everybody has similar difficulties the best medicine is to get back on the horse and work it out. Good instructors are part psychologist and part confidant, to help students through times of unease and uncertainty. Ignoring the problem may cause the instructor to lose a student, but more important it may cause a novice to abandon aviation forever.

Own up to your problem

If you have had a rough go of flight training, your confidence may slowly erode to the point of despair. Or a single anxiety-producing experience may have stopped you in your tracks. In either case the doubt created by these events may have eroded your resolve to finish the course of instruction. All of this should be a call to action to do something to correct the problem. Yet the negative experience may be so traumatic that it could seem easier to just walk away from the prospect of becoming a pilot.

To avoid giving up what you ardently strived for you must take a step back from the problem and think about what is really happening. What is the problem? Am I just not cut out to be a pilot? Was I wrong in ever thinking that I could do something so daring and complicated? More to the point, what exactly is my problem? I somehow can’t stay ahead of the airplane—why? Maybe I’m not prioritizing my tasks properly. Or why can’t I see that I’m landing in a crab? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.

Be specific about your problem; don’t cloak yourself in the damaging generalization that you were never meant to be a pilot. Once you’ve singled out your difficulty, find ways to work on it.

Knowledge is power

Perhaps the best means of conquering fear and uncertainty in any activity is to better understand it. What really happens to an airplane when it stalls? What is the post-stall tendency of a modern training airplane if you let go of the controls? Suppose you just hold the yoke against the aft stop after the stall break? How much altitude does it take to recover from a full-flap stall? Most instructors will include this information during stall lessons, but it all comes much too fast for the student struggling to keep up with the airplane.

Fully exploring what bothers you and causes anxiety is a well-known technique used by psychologists to help people conquer what bothers them. Afraid of heights? Programs can gradually get you closer to the edge of the precipice. Spiders give you problems? Learn how they live, discover their habitat, and identify which ones are dangerous. Then get up close with them—first separated by a glass jar, then in the open. Similarly, if stalls aren’t your thing, first learn everything you can about the causes and consequences of stalls, then go practice them until they don’t bother you as much. (Better still, practice stall recognition and avoidance during critical maneuvering.)

All of this may require some study on your part to fully understand what you need to know in order to feel more comfortable and confident. Your basic ground school course may not really be comprehensive enough when it comes to high-angle-of-attack operations or the yawing moments associated with crosswind arrivals. However, there is an abundance of reference material in print and online that should satisfy even the most curious. Finding it may take a bit of sleuthing but it will result in a new comfort level for what was once mysterious and scary.

Talk about it

Crosswinds a problem? What is your specific problem? Failure to see the drift? Not holding aileron into the wind? Can’t keep the nose aligned with the runway? Certainly your instructor should discuss these items with you, but maybe he doesn’t know everything. Seek a range of counsel from your fellow students, other pilots, and other instructors. Talk to them about their experiences, what works and what doesn’t. But beware of advice from your fellow students; they may have more crosswind problems than you do and know less about the subject.

Discussing problematic issues with experienced and trusted advisors will not only provide you with useful information and techniques, it will help restore your confidence with the knowledge that others may have found to surmount similar experiences. Don’t stew over your shortcomings; discuss them.

Change of scenery

Do you have the right instructor? Many students tenaciously cling to their first instructor in the belief that this is the sole guru who can impart the knowledge and techniques necessary to achieve the right stuff. Unfortunately, personalities, experience levels, communication styles, and teaching ability vary widely among instructors. Learning the relatively complex art of piloting requires a personal bond between instructor and student; if the bond is missing or tenuous, effective and enjoyable flight training may not be possible.

Likewise, the flight school, its personnel, or its aircraft may not prove a good fit for the student. Or the airport is a busy airline-served airport with complex procedures, heavy traffic, and difficult radio calls, doable but certainly not ideal for the neophyte.

How often do you fly? If you are only taking a lesson once every two weeks or less frequently, you are not doing yourself any favors. Learning’s law of recency makes it very clear that waiting too long between training sessions may reduce your learning progress to zero, a discouraging and demoralizing experience. If you don’t progress, doubt regarding your ability to successfully complete the syllabus may set in.

So consider a change of scenery. Whether it’s the instructor, flight school, airport, airspace, or too long between lessons, you don’t have to put up with barriers to your dream.

Doubt no more

Doubt regarding our abilities is not always a bad thing. It paves the way to rational thought that saves us from ourselves, dangerous activities, risky investments, and damaging relationships. But irrational doubt can be a growth-stunting experience that retards our progress toward a goal and robs us of worthwhile and rewarding experiences.

Regardless of the bravado and boasting heard around the flight school coffee machine, you are in the company of many who once were—and may still be—filled with self-doubt and trepidation about their aeronautical abilities. Somehow they have overcome or continue to overcome those deficiencies, and continue to seek mastery of the air. You can, too.

John Sheehan has been a military and civilian flight instructor for more than 40 years. He is secretary general for the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations.