Right seat: Homeward bound

I learned to fly in Gainesville, Florida, but that’s not where I’m from. I was going to college at the time and there was a decent flight school with some good instructors on the field. Like most students, I went to the school because it was convenient. Later I instructed nearby at a grass strip with a few houses on it. A formative experience, to be sure. But also a transient one.

I’ve since lived and flown in two areas and based out of two airports. Both have been great facilities, and truly felt like home airports. But home? It’s hard to say.

I’m amazed at pilots who can recall myriad details about their home airports long after they’ve moved on. Rote trivia such as frequencies, instrument approach minimums, and runway lengths come forth with no effort. I sometimes have to look up our airport’s control tower frequency, and that’s been active for four years! Never mind trying to recall details of previous home airports. For me, it’s a useless exercise. I used to think pilots could do this because they had such strong connections to the place that these somewhat-useless facts were etched into their brains. They were reminders of good times and hard work. Those pilots had friends there and had flown fun airplanes. But maybe they just have a better memory than me.

Maybe it’s the nomadic nature of our aircraft, but with an airplane, you can go home again.I’ve landed at Gainesville Regional Airport only once since moving away. The FBO was new, the flight school was gone, and I didn’t recognize the voice coming out of the tower. I also had to look up the runway designations, and the frequencies had long since left my feeble mind. It was, above all, a disheartening experience. I expected a feeling of coming home, of nostalgia. But it turns out I was less former starting quarterback coming home for game day and more anonymous traveler looking for the Holiday Inn.

Then a month or so ago a funny thing happened. I had occasion to fly past Gainesville on the way to a destination in South Florida, and studying the chart felt incredibly familiar. I quickly found airports I had visited only once with a student, and other stops where I delivered parts on a quick turn. The fixes and airport identifiers were like old friends. It was like driving down an interstate and cruising past your exit.

Maybe it’s the nomadic nature of our aircraft or what they can deliver to us, but with an airplane, you can go home again. The controls respond the same, the physics of flight never change. Scooting along at a few thousand feet above the same ground I had flown over 20 years earlier made it all click. Runways and hangars and frequencies are all just the infrastructure that get us to where we really want to be—cruising along above the swamps, forests, and mountains in a way that is as special today as it’s always been.

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You may have noticed that things look a bit different in this month’s Flight Training. March marks the launch of a full redesign. It’s a project our talented team has been working on for months and we’re excited to finally show it to you. For the most part the writers, photographers, and illustrators you have come to know and recognize remain, simply wrapped in a new package. A few things have changed, including the back page. Hopefully you’ll find this new look to be exciting, the content to be informative and entertaining, and exploring Flight Training to be a more enjoyable experience than ever. Drop me a line to let me know what you think, and thanks for reading. The look is new, but we hope you still find the magazine feels like home for you.