Around The Patch

My husband was my first passenger in 2001, and to this day I’m surprised he still wants to fly with me. He knew next to nothing about how airspace works, and I didn’t try to explain it. As we departed, he was looking for airplanes that he heard on the common traffic advisory frequency, not finding them, and imagining us getting into a midair collision. As we entered on a 45-degree angle to the downwind leg of the busy pattern at our then-nontowered airport, an airplane turned from crosswind to downwind, and my husband told me there was an airplane behind us. “I can’t bother about him,” I said. That probably wasn’t the most reassuring thing to say.

You just never know what will confound a nonpilot. Once I started an airplane before my passenger had put on her headset. She was positioning it every way but the right way, and rather than shut down I spent a few avgas dollars helping her adjust it so she could hear me (and I could hear her). Now everybody except me puts their headset on before the key goes in the ignition.

Another time I took a former co-worker for a trip around the pattern. Turning final, I saw that the approach was high, and I brought back the throttle. He winced. It never occurred to me that he would think the engine had stopped. Now I tell passengers that I will be reducing power, but the engine will continue to run and everything’s fine.

Last August I took my future son-in-law on his very first ride in a general aviation airplane. As part of my regular passenger briefing, I made sure Corey knew how to fasten and unfasten his seat belt, and how to open the door and operate his air vent.

We started up and taxied out to the runup area. I told Corey repeatedly that if he was feeling at all hesitant, we didn’t have to go. He said he was fine. I told him about the airsickness bag and to let me know if he felt any stomach disturbances. During the runup, I talked about why we check instruments and fuel and controls, keeping it as matter of fact and nontechnical as possible. My daughter, Maddie, sitting in the back, was a little bemused. She’s been flying with me since she was about 10, and she never got this type of VIP treatment.

When granted our takeoff clearance, I told Corey we’d accelerate to about 65 knots and the nose would come up. I explained that the left wing would rise as we departed the pattern, and I made it a nice, shallow bank. Scooting over the ridges to the west of Frederick, I mentioned that we might feel a little bump here or there because of the way the air flows over those ridges. “Think of it like water flowing over rocks,” I said, and when we did encounter a few minor burbles, Corey was ready for them and understood what was causing them.

We flew over Mar Lu Ridge, a camp in Jefferson, Maryland, perched atop one of the Catoctin Mountains. Its chapel looks out over the Middletown Valley, and it’s where Corey and Maddie will exchange vows in August 2019.

I kept the flight short. When we landed Corey and Maddie were talking about going with me on a lunch run sometime. Maddie confided later that Corey had been nervous—so much so that he thought about asking me to turn around and taxi back. Once we were in the air, she said, he was fine. “All the talking you did helped,” she said. “It was like you were an instructor.”

I’m not an instructor, but lots of very good pilots have helped me hone my passenger technique. And if I should take the step to become an instructor myself, I’ll have no shortage of great role models.