I’ve been thinking a lot about that concept of legacy lately, because I was recently asked to write the eulogy of a dear friend, Grant Bales, who died at age 87 after a long, full life. Witcraft’s concept of legacy was that the difference we make in the life of another will be the only thing that endures, and in aviation, we have a similar concept. It’s called the “Flight Instructor Pyramid.” The flight instructor is at the top of the pyramid and passes on a certain set of skills and knowledge to, say, his 10 students, who pass that on to their 10 students, and so on. In a short matter of years, that original flight instructor has “taught” hundreds of students.
Grant earned his flight instructor certificate in 1955 and instructed constantly, serving as chief instructor of a large flight school, right up until his final days. That’s 64 years of flight instructing and hundreds, if not thousands, of students. If the pyramid theory holds true, then Grant’s skills and knowledge will continue to be passed on for many generations to come. Talk about a legacy.
I asked Grant once, when he was a younger man (83 years old), to put together a list of things he thought were important for pilots and flight instructors to know. I thought I knew what he would say. Stay off the brakes…look outside…get coordinated. But I was wrong. It turns out when you have been instructing for more than 50 years, the things you want to pass on to future generations of pilots are less about the airplane and more about the pilot as a person:
There is no shame in not knowing, only in not asking.
“When I first obtained my instructor rating in 1955, the examiner issued my certificate with the admonition that I now had a license to learn how to fly. I thought I already knew how; I had just attained the rank of instructor! However, those first few students I trained in the tailwheel Cessna 140 proved I couldn’t have been more wrong. Don’t ever be afraid to admit you don’t know everything. There is still, to this day, so much I do not know. I ask for help all the time and consider it a compliment when someone asks me for help.”
Aviation has no place for dinosaurs.
“One of the great things about aviation is that it is always changing. I have been blessed to see a lot of those changes in the past 70 years or so and cannot imagine what the next 70 years will bring. I remember when GPS approaches were added to the Instrument Rating Practical Test Standards. A few instructor friends around my age refused to learn the new technology. They said it would never last. As you can imagine, they are no longer teaching—or flying at all, for that matter. I cannot understand that mentality. You have to stay relevant.”
Embrace technology as a tool, but do not become dependent on it.
“While it’s important to keep up with current technology, what will you do if it fails? In my day, if you got lost in an airplane, you would descend low enough to read the name of the town on the closest water tower. In Richmond, Kentucky, the airport manager also owned a car dealership. So he painted a bright white circle on the roof of his dealership with an arrow pointing you to the airport. Lots of towns had little hints like that. But you had to have a decent amount of situational awareness to make use of those clues. Pilots these days are so dependent on that little magenta line that they forget to use their brains.”
Don’t forget to have fun.
“I can vividly remember the days when we would take off and fly over the farmland of Kentucky. If you saw smoke coming out of a friend’s chimney, you would find a spot to land in their field and go inside for a cup of coffee. People took the time to enjoy life then. With today’s pace, I think that sometimes gets lost. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a little fun in an airplane. It’s simply not worth doing otherwise.”
I hope by sharing some of Grant’s tips that the common-sense approach of his generation will continue for years to come. What kind of legacy will I leave if I’m lucky enough to still be flying 50 years from now? I cannot imagine. But I hope I will be something like Grant: young at heart, and wise enough to know that there is still so much to learn.
Web: myaviation101.com