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News & Media You Can Fly: Can I still land an airplane?

You Can Fly: Can I still land an airplane?

A rusty pilot shares his comeback story

April 1, 2019 By Dan Namowitz
It was August 1989 when private pilot George Gillett took time out from his flying while he concentrated on graduating from college. The flying was going well. He was working on his instrument rating, and was only five hours short of eligibility to take the practical test. But there wasn’t enough time or money for academia plus aviation. Graduation day came in May 1990. A new job, relocation, and family responsibilities came along, as did “life in general that got in the way of returning to the cockpit.”
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Fortunately, Gillett’s aviation story—which had begun in December 1979 at North Carolina’s Sky Manor Airport while he was in the military based at Camp Lejeune—didn’t end at the college commencement ceremony. He still had his flight case, plotter, flight computer, and old charts, and he would break them out for a look now and then. But it wasn’t until September 2018, after retirement from a law-enforcement career marked by eight relocations in five states that Gillett, now a Knoxville, Tennessee, resident, hit the internet to see what was going on in aviation.

The information he found online got the juices flowing. He learned the FAA would mail him an updated pilot certificate and he discovered AOPA offers a Rusty Pilots Online course, the web-based version of the popular AOPA Rusty Pilots seminars that have helped thousands of lapsed pilots get back to flying.

“Because it had been so long since I flew, I figured that I would never pilot an airplane again,” Gillett said. “I felt I was too old and was out of currency for so long, that it would be like starting all over as a student pilot.”

Encouraged by connecting with flight instructor Matt Prince—“the calmest CFI that I had ever interacted with”—Gillett found that he could fly a Cessna 172 with no intervention. Gaining confidence, he forged ahead, celebrating the 115th anniversary of powered flight on December 17, 2018, by passing his instrument-rating practical test.

“One of the proudest moments of my life is when I was told that I had passed and was a newly minted instrument pilot, 30 years after beginning that journey,” he said. “For anyone that is considering a return to the cockpit after any length of layoff from flying, I say go for it!”

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How he did it

Tips for rusty pilots from George Gillett

Find a good teacher: “If I was going to make any attempt at flying again, finding the right CFI was important to me. After searching around a bit, I found Matt Prince, CFII at AvZ Aviation in Knoxville. Matt was the calmest CFI that I had ever interacted with and seemed to have endless patience answering my questions, reassuring me that I wouldn’t have any problems, and investing his time with me before we ever got into an airplane.”

Go back for more: “After a full week of thinking about whether or not to return, on October 25, 2018, I returned for another flight. This time, I wasn’t quite as nervous as the first time and one of the three landings that day was acceptable by my standards.”

Have a plan: “I thought long and hard about my path forward as a pilot after the October 25, 2018, lesson and decided that I wanted to finish training for my instrument rating, try to pass the written test, and then a checkride. So, I committed myself to my new goal, even though it was like I had stepped through an aviation time warp.

“There was much to learn, but I discovered that aviation had changed for the better. GPS RNAV approaches were more straightforward than the old nonprecision NDB approaches that I had trained on. Electronic flight bags and iPads as knee boards had made navigation so much easier and safer. Cellphones allowed easy flight plan filing and cancelling. There were no more paper charts and plates to keep track of in the cockpit, fewer holds and position reports, so the pilot workload during flight was eased.”

Good advice: “Absolutely do it. You won’t regret it. Take it one maneuver, one flight, one lesson at a time, and don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed by your own mind. Everyone, from your CFII to ATC to your fellow students, is supporting you and wants you to succeed. Don’t be intimidated by changes in the system or technology. Embrace it and learn from it. Even if you don’t stick with flying this time around, take something away from your experience that you can build on in the future. But, mostly, enjoy yourself and have a good time. There is nothing like flying solo again; the combination of nervous energy and exhilaration can’t be duplicated in any other area in life.”

 
Dan Namowitz

Dan Namowitz

Dan Namowitz has been writing for AOPA in a variety of capacities since 1991. He has been a flight instructor since 1990 and is a 35-year AOPA member.
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