When people find out I'm a flight
instructor, the first thing out of many of their mouths is, “don't
you get scared flying with those new wannabe pilots?” My canned
answer is no, flying with new students is no more stressful than
driving down a busy street or standing in a long line at WalMart
(actually, the WalMart thing is much more stressful and more likely
to produce a life-changing event). I seldom go to the next level of
answer, the level that goes back 25 years or so, back to that flight
with that students whose name I have long-since forgotten. The guy
who almost got us both killed.
As I recall, the flight in question
was this guy's third or fourth lesson. He had been a good student,
always showed up on time, had his homework done, listened carefully
to instructions – the works. We had already been through some of
the basics of flight, like climbs and descents, turns, and even some
ground reference maneuvers where we circle around a point on the
surface and try to keep the airplane at the same altitude and
distance from the reference. He had done fine, no remarkable problems
or learning issues. So we went to the next step.
That next step was what we call
'stall recognition and recovery.' Airplanes stall when their wings no
longer produce enough lift to keep the thing going. Normally it
happens because the pilot slows the airplane down too much or pitches
the nose of the plane up too high. Left unchecked, a stall can turn
into a spin, and a spin into a crash, with widely scattered aluminum
and sadness for those left behind. Not good.
To dramatically reduce the chance of
this scenario actually playing out in the real world, we teach
students how to recognize an impending stall and how to prevent it
from occurring, We also teach them how to recover from a stall early
in the process so it doesn't degrade into a spin. It's really not
complicated. All the pilot has to do is lower the nose of the
airplane to just below the horizon (what we call 'decreasing the
angle of attack'), add power and let the airplane go back to being
its normal, docile self.
Many students are terrified of stall
training, especially in the early phases of instruction. The thought
of flying a mile above the earth and putting the airplane
into a configuration where the wings stop flying produces more than
a little nervous laughter during the pre-flight ground briefing.
“We're going to do WHAT??” is often written all over their faces.
I don't recall this student being any more apprehensive than normal
during the pre-flight, so we climbed into the plane, got our
clearance, and took off for the practice area.
At that time, I was flying out of
Buchanan Field in Concord, California, a medium sized city just east
of San Francisco. The practice area was just north of the field,
midway between Concord and Travis Air Force Base. The area was flat
and deserted, populated only by migrating birds and the occasional
Tule Elk. Small canals and sloughs wind their way through the area,
forming marshy swamps in many areas. More than one airplane has been
pulled from those bogs over the years due to gas starvation or
mechanical malfunction. I always thought there must be snakes down
there, lots of them. I hate snakes.
The lesson started smoothly enough.
Normally, the instructor demonstrates a new maneuver to the student,
explaining it as he/she goes along. Then, the student does it, with
the instructor keeping a close eye (and closer hands) on the control
inputs. I showed the student how to do clearing turns to make sure
there was no conflicting traffic in the area. We then applied
carburetor heat, reduced the power, slowed the airplane to the
appropriate speed, lowered the flaps and established a power-off
glide. Then, we gently lifted the nose of the airplane to just a few
degrees above the horizon and watched the airspeed bleed off as the
plane tried to climb uphill with the engine idling. Keeping back
pressure on the yoke, we waited for the stall warning horn to go off,
telling us that we're just a few MPH above stall speed. At that
point, we lowered the nose to just a degree or two below the horizon,
added full power, and lifted the flaps to 20 degrees. We then lifted
the nose just a little above the horizon to establish a positive
climb rate, waited a few second, then lifted the flaps the rest of
the way up, establishing normal cruise airspeed. No sweat, and almost
no loss of altitude throughout the entire maneuver. I did the whole
thing one more time with the student just watching, to give him a
chance to chill a little and take in the steps one more time. Then it
was his turn.
The first few steps went fine. We
did our clearing turns and reduced the power to idle. As I reminded
him to start lowering flaps, I could see him leaning forward in his
seat as though bracing for an impact of some sort. OK, no worries,
most students are little nervous during these first few stall
exercises. When he lifted the nose to slow down to begin the stall
sequence, he pulled back way too far on the yoke and the airplane
pitched up far above the horizon, slowing much too quickly. This
rapid slowing caused the stall warning horn to blast its message
almost immediately, and when it did, rather than pitching the nose
down to just below the horizon, he pushed the yoke all the way
forward to its stops, causing the plane to pitch down violently. All
the papers and contents laying in the back seat lurched immediately
to the ceiling. Pens flew out of my pocket, and my head hit the
headliner. Hard. We must have pulled negative 2 Gs, and we were
going as close to straight down as I have ever been while not doing
aerobatics. To make matters worse, the student had applied full power
(as he should have), increasing our speed dramatically and bringing
the earth closer to us at an alarming rate. “I have the airplane,”
I called out, probably an octave or two higher than normal. When an
instructor says this to a student, it means for the student to let go
of the controls and the instructor will fly it back to a more normal
configuration. Only this time, the student was frozen on the controls
and did not let go. That's when I got a little, eh, anxious. “I
have the plane,” I repeated. Again, no response. We were now
probably 2500 feet above the ground and closing fast. The student had
both hands on the control yoke and would not let go. At least I could
reduce the power, so I did, which slowed our descent rate a little,
but we were still headed straight for those swamps and those damn
snakes. I called out for him to let go of the controls two or three
more times, but he was frozen in terror. Finally, at an uncomfortably
low altitude and with a windshield still full of marsh land, I jabbed
the student as hard as I could in the ribs with my elbow. That did
the trick. He let go, either from pain or shock, and I took the
controls and got is straightened out. We flew in silence back to
Buchanan. I never saw the guy again. I tried calling him a few times
to talk about what happened, but I never heard back. Too bad.
Though a scary story, I can honestly
say that was the only time in decades of boring holes in the sky with
new students that I was actually afraid. Most flights and lessons are
learning experiences that slowly, over time, turn a a dreaming
wannabe into a safe, confident and competent pilot, with a life
changed forever through the experience of controlled flight through
the earth's atmosphere. Mankind has dreamed of doing just that for
millennia, and it is every pilot's duty and pleasure to share that
experience with as many people as possible.
When I recounted that story to
people right after it happened, one or two asked if I was going to
quit teaching as a result of the experience. Frankly, the thought
never occurred to me. They say that piloting a plane is hours of
boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror. I don't believe it.
Flying for me has been years of sheer joy and sharing, punctuated by
one guy who freaked out and scared us both for a few moments of
uncertainty. It was nerve wracking for awhile, but not terrifying,
certainly not enough so to keep me from helping others realize their
dreams of flight.
No way was I going to let a little
muddy water and a few measly snakes keep me from showing newbies the
view from Up There. No way.
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