To Go or Not To Go

This is a post for my flying blog about not flying. Like many people, Mr. Aviatrix and I planned to go away for the long Memorial Day weekend. Although the time to drive to our home airport, preflight, fly, and drive from our destination airport to where we are staying would take longer than simply driving from door-to-door, like most general aviation pilots, we wanted to fly.

As we were flight-planning this morning, I had my doubts about flying instead of driving when I saw that the winds would pick up midday. My doubts increased when I called for a briefer and was notified of airmets for moderate turbulence and gusting winds at our landing airport. I'm confident in my aviation abilities but also keenly aware that I've had my ticket for less than two months. In addition, I hurt my back a couple of days ago and was concerned that getting bumped around would make it worse.

I know I don't need to make excuses for deciding not to fly. I know a lot of what can go wrong has to do with pilot error and pilot bad judgment. I know that it's good to subscribe to the advice that it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground. I know Mr. Aviatrix knows this, too, even though he really wanted to fly today. I guess I just want to feel better about my minimums and limits.

Mr. Aviatrix has a private pilot certificate, an instrument rating, a commercial rating, a seaplane rating, Tailwheel and high performance endorsements, and close to 1000 flying hours. He's also about ready to take a glider checkride (he had one previously scheduled while I was down in Florida, but it was too windy that day). Therefore, Mr. Aviatrix's minimums, limits, and comfort levels are vastly different from mine. Readers of this are scratching their heads as to why he didn't just fly us out himself. The simple answer is that I don't like flying in small planes when it gets too windy or bumpy, as PIC, SIC, or pax, especially if a car could just as or more easily get us there. We are working on our Crew Resource Management, on the ground as we review ForeFlight on side-by-side ipads and interpret things slightly differently, as well as in the air, to have more clearly defined roles and true respect for the decisions of the PIC, whoever he or she is and however much experience he or she has. Mr. Aviatrix let me be PIC for the entire decision-making process, subscribing to some other useful aviation advice: Happy wife, happy life.

One small perk to driving instead of flying: We saw a B-17 Flying Fortress overhead, likely as part of Memorial Day observances this weekend and a reminder that we can do so much, including fly our little airplane, because of those who served our country. As Eleanor Roosevelt said in 1948, "Whatever else Memorial Day may be, it is a day for thought, for remembering those who have loved their country and loved its people. What they loved was the life that they lived and perhaps we can remember them best in promoting and preserving life and the standards which they held and craved for all future citizens."

Course Correction in the Real World

It has been almost a month since I obtained my private pilot certificate. Adjusting to life after training has been just that - an adjustment. Although I would head down to Lakeland, Florida for intensive bursts of training on sanctioned breaks from my real job as a professor and the actual time merely amounted to 1-2 weeks here and there, when I was there I was completely immersed in a world that was all about flying. The day I after I got my ticket, my husband, our dog, and I were supposed to fly our plane home (our dog would have been the flight crew, as she's adept as handling snacks). However, weather and illness grounded my co-pilot and canine flight attendant and I hopped on a commercial airliner since I needed to teach an 8:30 class the next morning. Having our dream of a triumphant - and cross-country timebuilding for instrument-training - flight home dashed was extremely disappointing. Leaving all my luggage and grabbing my backpack with my logbook and some other essentials for my little family to schlep back when they could made me sad for them and lonely for me. Plus, what a letdown! No one at Tampa International Airport knew or cared that I'd just become a pilot. No one knew all I had just been through. No one would talk about it with me. This was despite my attempts to try by mentioning it to strangers on line at the gate that I'd been in Lakeland to finish working on my pilot's license. When I travel commercially with my husband, he always charms our way into the cockpit, usually by explaining that we are pilots and that I am a student pilot; we have never been denied entry and the pilots are always exceedingly nice and supportive. They offer photos and once even insisted that I sit in the left seat and take a picture. But my husband wasn't there and I wasn't a student anymore and I just felt silly so I took my seat and hoped that I at least gave off an aviation-related glow.

Thus began what I think of as re-entry to the non-aviation world.

Re-entry back to real life has also meant less flying, since the weekends are the only available times at the moment, at least until this summer. The weekend after I returned to New York, my husband and I took our first flight together ever with me in the left seat. I want you to stop reading this for a moment and imagine what it has been like for you to drive a car with a spouse or a significant other...okay, now that you're back, you likely called to mind someone pressing their foot down hard on an imaginary brake on the right side of the car or grabbing the handle or armrest in a turn or exclaiming something to the effect of, "What are you doing?! You're going to get us killed!" Now imagine if you had to fly a plane with this person. This is why I think we did pretty well considering it was the first time we had ever flown a plane with me as pilot in command (PIC). My husband was being a well-meaning pseudo-CFI, and that was the right inclination considering that he has about 900 hours more flying experience than I do. I would compare it to having to go running with someone when you have done marathons and the other person occasionally power-walks, another experience he and I have shared (he's the marathoner). He also handed over our Cessna 182 without reservation, which in my family is like giving someone the keys to your pristine '69 Camaro SS without any preliminaries or caveats other than simply saying, "Just have fun, go as fast as you want, wherever you want." He wanted me to be more efficient with my checklist (I am slow at the moment, gaining in my confidence, and I'm a bit of an OCD-checker by nature), he wanted me to be more precise about my heading based on the glass cockpit CDI (I was only off by a few degrees at times - but trying to look out the window). Honestly, he just wanted me to be the best pilot I could be but we are looking for a good course on crew resource management. Suggestions welcome!

The following two weekends we attempted to fly, but the winds would not allow it. This was in contrast to my intense time in Lakeland when, if I couldn't fly in the morning or even the whole day, the very next day I was up and away. Now I have to wait an entire week until another Saturday or Sunday rolls around. Yesterday we tried for a third time and it was the charm: It was gorgeous. I was able to log 1.9 hours of PIC cross-country time from our little airport in New Jersey to another little airport in New York and back. And I was even to put together some furniture in our hangar. I can't wait to go flying again and I still can't believe I'm a real pilot in the real world.