My one reservation was that our 78-year-old Franklin 150 engine had been freshly overhauled before purchase, and, between Pacific Northwest weather and building our hangar/living quarters, we’d only put 100 hours on it. By comparison, we owned our previous Piper Pacer for over 18 months and flew it some 220 hours.

The difference was that we made a number of ambitious cross-countries with the Pacer, while the Stinson has remained largely local. Infant mortality is a thing with newly overhauled engines—even those of more recent manufacture than the Franklin—and I was leery of venturing into the northern wilderness without a decent proving run. 

My own cross-country-making skills were also in need of a brush-up, having not been really exercised since we sold the Pacer in 2016. Yes, my day job involves regularly flogging Boeing 737s across the continent. But ensconced in the flight levels and enjoying performance and equipment that afford something approaching all-weather capability, those skills are practically irrelevant to the experience of being down in the rocks and the clay, trying to make serious miles in a VFR-only, single-engine aircraft of limited performance.

• READ MORE: Love Affair: The Last Frontier Awaits

The information-gathering and decision-making processes are entirely different, and the required degree of self-reliance much greater. These skills atrophy with disuse. The reality is that on marginal days in the Pacific Northwest, I mostly just don’t fly the Stinson, and so I haven’t had a lot of recent practice in making the fine calls. My brain, like my airplane, needed a proving run to get up to speed before tackling the north country. 

Longtime readers may recall past columns about our friends Sylvia and Hugh Grandstaff, previously of Texas and Alabama and the various forts and bases associated with Sylvia’s 13-year Army career as a CH-47 pilot. Since Sylvia left the Army a few years ago, the Grandstaffs moved to California, where Hugh now flies for Cal Fire. Most recently they bought a 70-acre parcel several hours north of San Francisco, and Dawn and I have really been looking forward to seeing it. Fortunately, there’s a small airport nearby in Boonville, California (D83). With a five-day stretch of time off work around my birthday in mid-April, it made the perfect destination for a leg-stretching, cross-country flight.

Weather delayed our departure on Monday, April 15, until after noon. Our airstrip sits just in the lee of 1,800-foot Green Mountain, and we frequently have low ceilings even after nearby Bremerton National (KPWT) is reporting good VFR. Eventually we were able to duck out under a 1200-foot ceiling for the first 5 miles and had great weather for the rest of the day with mostly clear skies, unlimited visibility, and a slight tailwind.

• READ MORE: Finding That Right Pilot Buddy to Bid With

Our first leg was a short one to Chehalis-Centralia (KCLS) for cheap gas, followed by a lovely 250-mile cruise down to Roseburg (KRBG) in west central Oregon. There was still over two hours of daylight remaining when we departed Roseburg, and I considered continuing to Crescent City, California (KCEC), but the marine layer along the coast had been persistent for several days and, despite a favorable forecast, the temperature/dew point spread was uncomfortably close.

Heading across the formidable Klamath Mountains to arrive at a potentially deteriorating destination with fading daylight and marginal gas to get back is the sort of thing that makes my antennae tingle. Instead, we made a scenic, half-hour hop to the mountain town of Grants Pass, Oregon (3S8) for the night. 

The friendly folks at Pacific Aviation Northwest loaned us a trusty airport car and directed us to the best dog-friendly hotel in town. We enjoyed a warm, beautiful evening, and I planned the following day’s flight to Crescent City via U.S. Highway 199 and then down the coast to Ukiah and Boonville following U.S. 101. This route, which I preferred for being shorter and more scenic than California’s Central Valley, was completely dependent on the coastal weather. Indeed, the marine layer did in fact move back over Crescent City around sundown. The new TAF reflected that but still claimed early clearing by midmorning. 

It was not to be. Despite a relaxed breakfast and a fashionably late appearance at the Grants Pass airport, the coastal METARs depicted a once-again tenacious marine layer. And furthermore, there was a completely unforecast broken layer a couple thousand feet over Grants Pass, which, problematically, was visibly obscuring our intended departure corridor to the southwest.

• READ MORE: Part 2: Exploring New Zealand’s Grand Islands by Air

Time for Plan B. We instead departed southeast toward Medford, Oregon, soon left the aberrant ceiling behind, and enjoyed a gorgeous flight up the Rogue River Valley over the Siskiyou Pass and past Mount Shasta. By the time we landed in Red Bluff, California (KRBL) for gas, the coast had cleared up nicely, making for a stress-free, one-hour flight across the Coastal Range to quaint little Boonville (D83), with its 2,800-by-50-foot paved runway tucked into a scenic valley.

Hugh met us and helped push the faithful Stinson into his rented hangar. Total flight time southbound was just over seven hours. 

We had a fantastic couple days with the Grandstaffs and fell in love with their impossibly scenic off-grid homestead high up a golden, oak-peppered ridge overlooking the Rancheria Creek watershed. Our dog Piper had a great time running around the ranch with the Grandstaff’s deaf, three-legged rescue pup, Dove. We went hiking, drove out to the coast, went flying in the Stinson (incredibly, the first time Sylvia and I have flown together in our long friendship), and shared an unexpectedly fine meal at an unpretentious gem of a restaurant in Boonville. It was a special birthday spent with treasured friends. 

Several years of my early career were spent living in and flying all around California, and every time I come back I’m absolutely gobsmacked at how fantastic it is—especially the northern half of the state. There’s a tendency for outsiders to decry the congestion, high cost of living, supposedly suffocating regulatory structure—“Californication”—and I won’t deny that the most crowded areas hold little appeal to me. But California is an enormous and tremendously varied state, more akin to a medium-sized country, one that would take a lifetime to fully explore.

There’s a lot to love in California, particularly for pilots and those who enjoy outdoor adventure, and a surprising portion of it is lightly populated and not so terribly expensive. The Grandstaffs are not wealthy, but simply by putting down roots outside of commuting distance from San Francisco (and putting a lot of sweat equity into their land), they could afford a fairly large and beautiful spread of property. Well done, you two. 

An approaching low-pressure system forecast to make landfall on Friday prompted me to move up our northbound departure by a day, and we were rewarded with fine weather and a light tailwind in southerly flow. This time we were able to take the coastal route to Grants Pass, stopping in Little River, California (KLLR) to top up on fuel, then cruising up the rugged shoreline to Crescent City, and climbing up and over the redwood forests of the Klamath Range.

From Grants Pass we retraced our route to Chehalis-Centralia and finally back to our home grass strip, where a gusty north wind set up a potentially sketchy landing on seldom-used, downhill-sloped Runway 30. I decided to make a low inspection pass and beat a retreat to Bremerton National if things got too sporty. As it turned out, the challenging approach through a small notch in the tall pines lining the threshold went perfectly, and once below the tree line in smooth air, I found myself in perfect position to land in the touchdown zone—so I did. Total time northbound was six hours. 

The plane worked great, and the engine ran smoothly throughout the trip, with fuel burns of 9 to 9.5 gph (typical of the Franklin, which is thirstier than an equivalent Lycoming O-320 or Continental O-300) and true airspeed averaging 105 mph. I gained some useful, real-world performance data for max gross weight operations, the weather provided a few decision-making opportunities, and I got practice in filing, activating and closing VFR flight plans again.

In short, our jaunt to California and back was exactly the sort of cross-country proving run I had in mind. I returned with renewed confidence in the plane and my own skills,and looked forward to our Alaska flying adventure with eager anticipation.

This column first appeared in the September Issue 950 of the FLYING print edition.

The post A Leg-Stretching Jaunt to the Golden State appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

As an FAA-certificated pilot, you are allowed to fly aircraft within the U.S., as well as N-registered aircraft in any ICAO member state (193 countries comprising the vast majority of the world). Beyond our shores and U.S.-registered aircraft, though, piloting requires converting your FAA certificate(s) to their foreign equivalent(s). There are a few reasons one might be interested in doing this. 

The first, and most common, is foreign citizens returning to their native country after completing flight training in the U.S. because of the lower cost of flying here. There are now several schools in the U.S. that offer direct European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) pilot licensure, but the more common route is to earn one’s FAA certificates here and then go through the conversion process back home.

The second scenario involves U.S. citizens converting their commercial or ATP certificate with the intention of working overseas as an expat (or emigrating), or as a hedge in case of a downturn in the U.S. economy, airline industry, or political situation. This was quite common in the “lost decade” after 9/11, when thousands of furloughed or career-stagnated U.S. pilots sought opportunities overseas at the same time that many foreign operators were facing an acute pilot shortage. Right now the U.S. is well ahead of most of the world in both pilot compensation and hiring, but this could change, and in any case a scenery shift will always appeal to some. Unless you are a dual citizen or otherwise have a right to work in a foreign state, however, obtaining a work visa may prove harder than converting your certificates.

The last scenario involves a U.S.-certificated pilot who spends a lot of time overseas, or is taking a lengthy vacation, and wishes to fly locally registered aircraft for pleasure. This usually involves issuing only a PPL (depending on the country) and perhaps an instrument rating.

Every country’s aviation authority sets its own requirements and process for converting pilot licenses, except in cases where multiple countries have combined their authorities into a single agency, as in the case of EASA (which covers the entire European Union, plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein). It helps that ICAO has coordinated three standard levels of licensure that are recognized by all member states: private (PPL), commercial (CPL), and airline transport (ATPL). A fourth ICAO license, multi-pilot (MPL), is not recognized by the U.S. or Canada. Instrument and multiengine ratings are well standardized and usually convertible, though maintaining currency and recency of experience can differ greatly. However, the FAA’s non-ICAO-standard certificates, such as recreational or light sport, usually cannot be converted. 

Almost all conversions require obtaining a medical certificate issued by the converting authority. If not yet in-country, this might involve a special visit with associated time and expense. Medical certification standards vary, as do the guidelines for waivers and special issuances. In some cases, your current FAA medical can be used for a limited time frame, after which you must obtain a local medical of the appropriate class.

The simplest license conversions typically involve countries with similar regulatory structures, often neighbors. New Zealand and Australian licenses are easily interchangeable with a simple form. Converting a U.S. certificate to a Canadian one is a fairly simple process involving a 10-to-15-hour online class. The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) resumed responsibility for licensure after Brexit, and its licenses were interchangeable with EASA until last year. They are still virtually identical and easily convertible. Some Middle East countries and others with a high percentage of expat airline pilots (notably excepting India and China) accept FAA, EASA, and U.K.-CAA ATPLs with a minimum of fuss.

• READ MORE: Make a Run for the Border

Most countries, however, present the potential convert with significant hurdles and no small amount of bureaucracy, particularly for CPL and ATPL. These can include a logbook review, submitting police records and undergoing a background check, undergoing mandatory ground and/or flight training, sitting for various exams, and passing a check ride or flight review. Even for my humble New Zealand short-term PPL validation, I had to log ground and flight instruction in weather and mountain flying from a NZ instructor and then complete a flight review. It’s worth noting that NZ, like many countries, uses a type-rating system even for piston singles. My BFR took place in a Cessna 172, and I am type rated in the “C172” only. To fly any other type, I would need to seek training from an appropriately rated NZ instructor. Similarly, to fly at night I would need to obtain a night rating. 

The most common target for converting FAA certificates is undoubtedly EASA. Converting a PPL in the EU is a reasonably simple proposition, an instrument rating or CPL somewhat less so, and an ATPL least of all. The Europeans—and really, most aviation authorities worldwide—place a much greater emphasis on knowledge testing than the FAA. ATPL conversion candidates must sit for 14 separate exams, testing knowledge of aerodynamics, weather, systems, regulations, air traffic procedures, and so forth. In addition, there are many ground and flight training requirements, capped off by a check ride. It’s a lengthy, expensive, and cumbersome process, yet thousands of European professional pilots (and a few Americans) have gone this route. 

Ultimately, flying is flying the world over, and the differences from country to country are relatively minor in the scheme of things. Compared to the difficulty of learning to fly and earning your FAA certificates in the first place, exporting them for use overseas is usually a pretty reasonable process and an enlightening one that gives a sneak peek into how various aviation authorities go about their business.

The post A Primer on Pilot Certificate Conversions appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

But today I’m finally taking a day off. I’ve had an ultra-productive week, I’ll be flying for work tomorrow, and Dawn just headed to her parents’ place in South Dakota. It’s just me and my flying pooch, Piper, living the bachelor life. It’s time for a playdate to go explore those Cascade mountain strips I’ve been eyeing from high above on the CHINS5 and GLASR2 arrivals. This would ideally be done in the cool, still air of morning, but I got waylaid by another project, and it’s after noon by the time Piper and I finally depart and turn northeast. It’s not a terribly hot day, though, and we’re light, and the highest airstrip is at only 3,000 feet in elevation. The puffy cumulus over the Cascades aren’t looking too threatening—yet.

I skirt south of Paine Field (KPAE) and enter the mountains via the dramatic Skykomish River valley, with 6,000-foot peaks towering over both sides. Fifteen miles in, the town of Skykomish appears around a bend along with our first destination, Skykomish State Airport (S88): 2,000 feet of turf runway, 1,002 feet elevation, trees on both ends. The left pattern to Runway 24 makes for a tight downwind along the southern ridge and close by a granite outcropping before turning a blind base. Turning final, the runway appears again out of the trees, and I ease down a groove and land on the grass. With just Piper and I and partial fuel, I easily turn off at midfield without getting on the brakes.

Piper is a much less anxious flyer these days, but he’s still always glad to clamber out of the airplane and run his little heart out. The airport is deserted today, so I let him wander off leash while I take a look at the picnic tables and camping spots. The field is ideally set up for group camping by an EAA chapter or a gaggle of friends. The guest book reveals mostly old taildraggers like mine, the most recent some 10 days ago. There’s no reason you couldn’t take a Cessna 172 in here easily if you kept it light, but alas, many flight schools and FBOs in the area now prohibit landing at unpaved airports.

After a quick lunch, Piper and I load up again, start up, and take off on Runway 24. I fly a mile beyond town and then turn around in a wide part of the valley, climbing steeply to have plenty of altitude before approaching 4,056-foot Stevens Pass. I see the alpine lake to which Dawn and I snowshoed last winter and turn north to cross a 5,000-foot ridge into the Rainy Creek watershed. I follow it down to beautiful Lake Wenatchee and the Lake Wenatchee State Airport (27W), elevation 1,936 feet msl. As I approach, I can see the middle half of the 2,473-foot runway appears to be bare dirt and decide to do an inspection pass down Runway 9. I don’t see any big rocks, but on the next approach I touch down right at the threshold to get slow before the bare patch. Even at reduced speed, we bounce around a lot, and I can hear stones hitting the underside of the fuselage. Maybe I ought to have landed beyond the dirt—there was a good 1,000 feet of grass left. Soon after we arrive, a Cessna 182 buzzes the dusty strip and peels off into the left downwind. I film his landing, which is a dramatic plop right in the middle of the rocky zone. The hardy Skylane seems no worse for wear, and I’m soon talking to Bryce from Las Vegas. He’s flown all the way here for the Touratech Rally for adventure motorcyclists in nearby Plain, Washington. We talk dirt bikes for a bit before I eye the skies and decide it’s time to go. Those cumulus have built a good bit. They’re not ugly enough to chase us out of the mountains just yet, but Piper and I should get moving.

I purposely came into the mountains with partial gas, necessitating a fuel stop at Wenatchee’s Pangborn Memorial Airport (KEAT). From there, we climb out over Mission Ridge, dodging rain shafts. My Stratus ADS-B receiver shows some strong precipitation northeast of Mount Rainier and over the Goat Rocks Wilderness, but so far it’s staying clear of our next destination. Passing Cle Elum, Snoqualmie Pass looks very doable—that’s my backup option. As I work my way southwest, though, the weather holds. Crossing Bethel Ridge, I marvel at a fantastic ridgetop trail and file it away for a ride on my KTM dirt bike. From there, it’s a fast drop into the Tieton River valley, where Tieton State Airport (4S6, elevation 2,964 feet msl) is nestled on the shore of Rimrock Lake.

In late summer, Tieton State becomes a busy Forest Service firebase, but for now it’s quiet. The vertiginous dome of appropriately named Goose Egg Mountain lies just off the north end, making this a mostly one-way-in, one-way-out airport. The wind is nearly calm. I fly out over the lake, make a spiraling descent, and set up a dogleg approach to 2,509-foot Runway 2. There’s a decent bug-out option to the left down to about 150 feet, but below that you wouldn’t want to go around without a good bit of power. This time, speed and glide path are right on target, so I continue over the shoreline and make a wheel landing on the grass. Overall the strip is in great shape.

Tieton looks like a fantastic place to airplane camp. There’s plenty of shady parking alongside the strip, an indoor pit toilet, and nice views over the lake and mountains. It’s a short walk to the beach, where Piper frolics in the sand. For a minute, he’s a young pup on Windbird again. But now it’s 5 p.m., and those overdeveloped cumulus are getting a lot closer. I can see rain shafts cutting across the far side of the lake. Our playdate is almost over. The hourlong flight home will take us up and over White Pass, past Mount Rainier via the Skate Creek and Nisqually River drainages, and thence via Puyallup and the Tacoma Narrows. As a young pilot, this would have been a grand adventure, and now it’s all part of my backyard.

My 20th wedding anniversary is coming up, and while we’re celebrating with a monthlong trip to New Zealand later in the year, we didn’t have plans for the big day itself. When I asked Dawn what she’d like to do, she said airplane camping in the mountains. I think Tieton State Airport will be a great place to base ourselves for a few days of exploration. I’m a very lucky guy.

This column first appeared in the September 2023/Issue 941 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Playdate Provides Chance to Explore the Cascades appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

When Dawn and I bought our previous airplane, a 1953 Piper Pacer, we vowed to fly it at least ten hours a month, and indeed we clocked some 220 hours over 18 months of ownership. This time around, I’ve only flown our Stinson 40 hours since buying it in August. This is partly because Pacific Northwest winters, while much milder than in Minnesota, offer far fewer days that are flyable in a strictly VFR airplane. Secondly, I’ve been quite busy finishing our hangar apartment and that’s taken up the vast majority of my time when I’m not flying for work.

Still, I know there is nothing worse for an airplane—or a pilot!—than sitting on the ground, and so I’ve tried to take the Stinson for at least a short flight once every week or two to get the oil up to temp. Unfortunately for the last month it has been imprisoned in its hangar by an impressively solid 44-by-15-foot Higher Power hydraulic door frame, which we assembled and hoisted into place before we had power in the hangar to actually open it. The electrician finally showed up only yesterday after several weeks’ delay. In the interim, we have had some beautiful VFR days that hint at the coming of spring, and I’ve been rather frustrated at my inability to take my flightless bird aloft.

Yes, I have been flying the Boeing 737 plenty—a bit more than I’d like, actually. And I’ll admit, there have been periods of my life where airline flying scratched that itch I’ve had since childhood. It just doesn’t quite do the trick right now. This probably seems absurd to the multitude of young pilots just beginning their careers, casting about for any bit of flight time they can snag and dreaming of the prospect of getting their hands on anything that burns jet-A. I know this; I was that kid once. To me, it doesn’t seem so long ago.

When I started flying in 1994, I had just turned thirteen. Age and finances dictated that flight lessons were a once-a-month event, and I remember the intense yearning that accompanied each ground-bound interval. I thought about flying, talked about flying, literally dreamed about flying as I mowed lawns, shoveled driveways, and did odd jobs to scratch together the $58 that would buy an hour of dual in the Cessna 150. Every once in a while I came up short, and then there was an excruciating two-month flightless gap—and one of eleven weeks in which I tearfully contemplated quitting. As I got older and found steady work, though, the lessons became more frequent, especially in the run-up to my 16th and 17th birthdays. Nothing made me happier than being able to fly most every week. It was in this frame of mind that I chose to pursue a flying career.

At eighteen, I headed to the University of North Dakota and, unleashed by my sudden freedom to amass eye-watering student loans, seldom went three days without flying. I was in hog heaven for the first year or so. But I still remember the first time I woke up and realized, with a groan, that I had a flight scheduled for that morning. A lightbulb went off: So this is what it means to be a professional pilot. You don’t always want to fly, and you do it anyway. That realization was punctuated during my first summer of flight instructing in Southern California when I flew 400 hours in three months and had only a few days off.

Continuing to instruct during my senior year at UND, my logbook records a ten-day flightless gap from September 7 to 17, 2001. It seemed much longer, and flying felt very different thereafter. I knew that my career had just taken a drastic turn, and I steeled myself for an extended grind. In the two years after graduation, while instructing and flying Part 135 cargo, the only time I went more than two days without flying was a nine-day pause for my wedding and honeymoon. Freight dogging, in particular, was incredibly tough—in retrospect, the hardest and most dangerous flying I ever did. And yet my overarching memory of that period was how flying became completely commonplace: It was just what I did. Fascination was replaced by familiarity. I didn’t lose my love of flight, but its nature changed markedly. If taking wing no longer made my heart flutter, I found joy and comfort in looking down upon the unsuspecting world from my daily perch, and being truly and utterly at home.

Now being ground-bound held no measure of yearn- ing for me, for I always knew that I’d return to my home in the air soon enough. At the regional airlines, I bid schedules that created flightless gaps of weeks or even a month, the better to accommodate terrestrial pursuits like backcountry camping, motorcycling, and international travel. I got back into general aviation, started flying old taildraggers, and rediscovered the sort of flight that still makes my heart go pitter-patter (sea- planes, gliders, and skydiving do the trick, too). When I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and was grounded from flying airliners while awaiting a special issuance medical, sport pilot rules still allowed me to fly a Piper J-3 Cub, which was a great comfort as I pondered the possibility of a life in which the sky was no longer home. My return to the flight deck after four months’ absence was a joyful affair, and I vowed never to take my privileged position for granted again.

And then, after I’d been hired at my current airline, Dawn and I decided to sell our home and the Pacer, buy a 42-foot sailboat, and run away to sea. I transferred to a highly seasonal fleet and base that allowed me to take lots of time off during the cruising season, and for the first time since I was 13, I voluntarily ventured no higher than sea level for months at a time. Bearded and shirtless, I’d look up from tropical anchorages to spy an airliner flying far overhead, and it’d seem like a relic from another lifetime. Every eight weeks or so I’d endure a brutal shave and dig my mildew-spotted uniform out of the hanging locker, and then I’d commute up to Atlanta to reacquaint myself with the pleasures of flying the Boeing 757. It was always slightly unsettling at first, but by leg two it would be like I’d never left.

That’s what it feels like right now, as our roaring Stinson lifts from the grass and claws its way above the towering firs, revealing a striking panorama: the tree- lined, deep-blue ribbon of Hood Canal, backed by the snow-blanketed breadth of the jagged Olympics. It’s been eight weeks, but Dawn and I and our faithful old Stinson are comfortably back in our home element. The Franklin growls steadily as we gain altitude, and the full glory of our adopted corner of the world—snow-capped volca- noes, rolling hills, an intricate maze of saltwater coves and passages, sleepy fishing villages, gleaming steel cities, and—over it all—a dark-green carpet of giant firs and cedars—unveils itself before our eyes. This, too, is home. Here I am content. Here, with my adventurous wife by my side and with a good old airplane in which to explore our fascinating world, my wandering heart is full.

This column first appeared in the June 2023/Issue 938 print edition of FLYING.

The post A Flightless Bird Returns to the Skies appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

This is a very welcome development that will do wonders to increase the diversity of our pilot corps, as well as help tear down lingering barriers between our pilot and flight attendant groups, an unfortunate aspect of our company culture. Management apparently agrees: Several years ago they created two accelerated hiring paths to the flight deck for our flight attendants, which has stirred immense interest among our cabin crew. The early participants are now at the qualification level where I’ll be flying with them soon, and I’m really looking forward to it. 

When I encounter anyone who is interested in flying professionally, flight attendant or not, I often suggest that they first go get their private pilot certificate before making any big commitments. Flying, and especially at the professional level, isn’t for everyone. Not everyone will enjoy it, and not everyone is cut out for it. Too many people discover this only after quitting their job and putting a lot of money and time into professional flight training. In my opinion, the time to discover whether a flying career is right for you is during primary training. My airline apparently agrees because it made a private pilot certificate a prerequisite for our basic flight-attendant-to-flight-deck hiring path (the advanced path requires a commercial certificate).

Similarly, I often suggest that those who are interested in taking primary flight lessons first go on a discovery flight, or introductory flight lesson, to make sure it’s right for them. Or better yet,  go on several discovery flights with multiple flight schools and instructors to gauge which is right for them. Most FBOs and flight schools offer 30-minute introductory lessons at a somewhat discounted rate, sometimes via a Groupon coupon. This has traditionally been intended to give the prospective learner a somewhat rosy picture of what piloting a small airplane is like, a quick hit of the good stuff to ‘get ‘’em hooked’ with none of the messy side effects. I have always thought, however, that students, instructors, and schools are better served by giving prospective aviators a realistic look at what learning to fly is like—and that they should treat the experience as an extended interview of a prospective instructor and flight school.

There is no standard format for a discovery flight. Every school, and in many cases each instructor, does it differently. Some conduct a preflight briefing; others do not. Some walk the student slowly through the preflight inspection; other instructors do it quickly themselves and get the student in the air ASAP. Some give the student significant instruction; others barely let the student touch the controls. Sometimes it varies based on the time available or by just how deeply a particular discovery flight (and perhaps instructor fee) has been discounted. When I was instructing, I knew a few CFIs who openly talked about discovery flights being a rare chance to manipulate the controls themselves for almost an entire flight. Based on recent conversations with discovery flight recipients, this still seems to be a common mindset. That’s a pity.

• READ MORE: That First Flight

I’m no longer an active flight instructor, but I make a regular point of taking nonpilots flying in my Stinson 108.  Whenever they show the slightest interest in learning to fly, I conduct their flight in the same fashion as the introductory flight lesson I was afforded at age 13, and the way I tried to perform discovery flights when I was an active CFI. This includes a ground briefing to explain what we’ll be doing, what they should watch out for, and what they can expect to learn and accomplish. Then I’ll spend a good 15 minutes talking them through the preflight inspection, getting their hands on fuel sumps, brake calipers, the oil dipstick, and cowling fasteners. Finally, we go flying for 30 to 60 minutes. I have them follow me on the controls during takeoff, then I level off and trim out and get right into the business of teaching the basics of aircraft control. This includes coordinated turns, which can be tricky in my Stinson, but everyone seems to get it after a few minutes. I fly a circular course, so we can get back home quickly if the student starts looking green. Every 10 minutes or so, I take the controls to show a scenic point of interest, giving the student a short break in concentration and an example to emulate. Our loop always ends over bustling Lake Union, for a spectacular view of downtown Seattle with the majestic backdrop of Mount Rainier.

I understand this is an idealized introductory flight lesson, one given at my leisure during ample free time, and not necessarily always realistic given the demands of instructor and training fleet scheduling. Not to mention the economic considerations of offering a discovery flight cheap enough to attract casual punters. For this reason, if you’re a prospective student, I would avoid those cheap, advertised 20-to-30-minute discovery flights, which are likely to involve little instruction and  insight into your prospective school or instructor. Instead, I would request a two-hour block of instructor time with a full 45 minutes of flight time. This will give you the opportunity to make a thorough evaluation.

When you show up 15 minutes before your scheduled start time, how is the atmosphere of the place? Harried and chaotic or organized and calm? Does somebody greet you promptly and appear to know what you’re there for? Your instructor may well be finishing a lesson with another student. How do they handle the transition? Is there a quiet briefing area, and do you notice other instructors briefing their students before their flights? Does your instructor explain what you’re going to do without resorting to jargon you don’t know? When you go out to the airplane, does your instructor seem rushed? Do they teach you the preflight or at least talk through what they’re looking at? Is the airplane beat up with apparently inoperative equipment?

While the instructor is taxiing out and taking off, do they explain what they’re doing? After takeoff, how soon do they give you control, and how do they handle the transition to active instruction? Rest assured, your aircraft control will be pretty rough at first, possibly enough to make most pilots squirm with unease. How does your instructor react? This is an excellent chance to gauge their patience. Are they paying attention to what you’re doing and how you’re doing it? Are they adjusting their instruction when you don’t understand something? Do they seem in a hurry to take the controls or to return to base? After the flight, do they give you a debriefing and a chance to ask questions? I’d suggest a frank discussion about the instructor’s experience, their students’ check ride pass rate, their career goals going forward, and the chances of them sticking around the flight school during your planned time frame for primary training.

Let’s say you do three of these introductory lessons at three flight schools with three instructors. At the end, you should have about 2.3 hours logged (which certainly counts towards PPL requirements), be getting pretty good at basic aircraft control, and have a good idea of the differences between flight schools and instructors. Hopefully, you’ve found one that you mesh with well. When you consider the considerable cost of ineffective instruction or having to switch schools or instructors midstream, I’d say these 2.3 hours of discovery flights should be money well spent.

The post Voyages of Discovery Can Be Money Well Spent appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The post Switching Careers Late in Life, Part 2 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Sam’s got tips for choosing a regional airline, including pros and cons about flow-throughs and what they could do for your career progression. They can add a layer of predictability to your career. 

Also, Sam offers a brief history and background on the issue, including his personal perspective. 

The post Can Airline Flow-Through Agreements Benefit Your Pilot Career? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

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The new owner, Craig Fuller, is a pilot and aviation enthusiast with a long regard for the brand, and he is making big changes with the goal of setting up FLYING to prosper in its second century of publication. 

It’s not all beer and Skittles; I’ll admit I’m saddened to see the print edition going to a quarterly publication. I have a curmudgeonly affinity for physical print and paper, and while I’m glad to see the positive changes underway—doubling the page count, reinvesting in quality, and refocusing on long-form storytelling, which I love—if I had my druthers we’d do all that and increase publication back to 12 issues a year! But that’s not the world we live in. Even I—print aficionado that I am—made the switch to primarily reading digital books and magazines during my time cruising the Caribbean (owing to lack of library space on Windbird), and have retained that habit since moving back to land. 

Digital content has an accessibility and immediacy that print cannot match—and durability too, thanks to search engines keeping years of information at one’s very fingertips. 

Every print publication, if it wants to survive and thrive today, must shift its center of gravity online, and not in a way that merely reproduces its printed pages. Graphical, audio, and video content have become every bit as important as writing, if not more. It pains me a bit to say that, because writing is my second love (after flying)—but at the end of the day, the written word is merely one way of expressing an idea, the thing that is in your head and your heart that you wish to share with the world. The idea is the important thing; the medium only matters in how well it spreads the idea. The explosion of affordable high-quality video recording equipment and consumer-level editing software has made video, in particular, an increasingly accessible and effective medium for both storytelling and sharing skills and knowledge. Much of today’s quality aviation content that is compelling to both pilots and aspirants is made by amateurs and streamed on YouTube. 

A New Idea

All of which is to say that I’m glad FLYING is surviving in print form, and I’m glad to be continuing to write my print column, Taking Wing—but I’m really excited to be contributing to FLYING Digital during this time of rebirth and expansion. I was initially going to do a straight port of the Taking Wing franchise—Taking Wing Online, etcetera—but while that started out with a strong focus on pilot careers, it turned into more of an adventure column (It’s a mild point of pride that I’ve written nearly as much about motorcycles, dirt bikes, and sailboats as airplanes—for me, these are all means to an end, ultimate freedom). 

I’m going to be doing something different here, refocusing on aviation careers and professional piloting, especially on the beginning stages of a flying career. This calls for a new title, and I found “V1 Rotate” especially appropriate. It’s a phrase you’ll hear on the flight deck your very first day flying a transport category airplane, and you’ll say or hear it on every flight after that for the rest of your career. 

There’s a very personal reason for this refocusing. 

About Me

For those who haven’t followed my print column, I’m a 40-year-old Boeing 737 captain for a major U.S. airline (you’ll quickly guess which one), but I began flight lessons at a small-town airport at the age of 13. 

Growing up, I didn’t know anyone who flew for a living, much less worked for an airline. There was no blueprint, and information was scarce in those days. Now the problem is inverted: There’s an enormous amount of information on aviation careers online, but it’s difficult sifting through it all to see what is valuable advice, what is flight training industry or airline industry propaganda, and what are the disgruntled rantings of individuals whose careers haven’t met their expectations. 

My vision for “V1 Rotate” is to become a good, reliable source of sound advice for prospective and newer professional pilots who, like me, didn’t come from an aviation background. Some of it will be in written form, some will be graphical, some will be video, and some—like today’s installment—will feature a blend of two or more mediums. 

Now, just because I’m a major airline captain doesn’t make me an authoritative source that you should listen to—honestly, it’s sort of the opposite. Airline pilots tend to give advice based on their own careers even after circumstances have dramatically changed, and my current position makes me rather insulated from the recent turmoil and changes in the lower echelons of the aviation industry. 

• READ: More from Sam Weigel

I remember that when I was a young regional airline first officer, I used to scoff at the fuddy duddies in the majors’ left seats as being hopelessly out of touch. Now I’m the guy incredulously querying the jumpseater: “Wait, who did you say you fly for…when did they start up!?” 

In a way, starting “V1 Rotate” is a way for me to get back to my roots, to rebel against that insulating tendency of my position and stay abreast of a rapidly changing industry, while still being able to share my experience in a meaningful way. 

And it won’t be just me: I’ll be featuring video and Zoom interviews with airline recruiters, chief pilots, sim instructors and check airmen, union officials, and active and retired pilots who have had interesting career paths. I’ll show how to create a resume and cover letter, how to network, how to prepare for and dress for an interview, and how to get through training and your probationary year. 

I’ll break down things like flows and checklists, standardization, and CRM for those just entering a crew environment for the first time, and relate those things to light aircraft flying for those still in training and time building. We’ll review products that may be useful to current and budding pro pilots. And occasionally, I’ll invite guest writers and vloggers to share their own unique perspective. 

Eventually, I hope to make this a special place where those considering an aviation career come to get good advice, and then return as they progress through training, timebuilding, and their first flying jobs. It’ll take a while to build up a good body of work here, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I invite you to stop back on the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month, when you’ll find new content here. I’ll see you here next on December 17!

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