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.
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