There’s this pleasent little fiction in aviation: pilots are in the prime of health. Always. And we never, ever fly at less than our best. They pound that into your head in flight school, too - don’t fly unless you’re in perfect health and feel fantastic.
Then there’s the real world.
Waking up with a headache, even a mild one, isn’t a whole lot of fun. So there I was, lying in bed looking up through the dark, pre-dawn time at the ceiling I couldn’t see. Not only was it dark, but I didn’t have my glasses on yet. And I had a headache and Sinus Issues.
[expletive deleted]
OK… how bad is this, really. Should I or shouldn’t I cancel flying today on account of it? Fact is, we were getting into Hay Fever and Allergy season - if I strictly followed the ideal of not flying unless I felt fantastic there would be about four months of the year I wouldn’t fly at all. And if you think anyone follows those rules exactly… well, let me tell you about an airline captain I am acquainted with who spent months sneezing, coughing, and making horrible mucus noises all the while ferrying paying passengers across the US. The real question here is am I safe or am I not?. Further complicated by the fact that most of the over the counter pharmaceuticals that can ease symptoms so you can get on with your ordinary day are incompatible with flying, at least flying as a pilot.
I got up and ate breakfast. Hot beverages. Nose blowing. This usually makes for some improvement, and it did this time, too. I bent over and put my face between my knees in a quick motion, which is going to provoke sinus troubles if anything will. The sinuses went hmmmm… OK, we’ll cooperate this time instead of causing me pain. OK, that was a good sign. Felt a little stiff/aching/arthritic but only a touch, the sort of stiffness that will dissapate with movement (I’d blame it on being over 40, but I’ve been slightly arthritic since my teens). Probably the chill - this was the first morning I had a desire to bring hat and gloves along with me. I actually had long underwear on for the first time since the previous spring thaw. In sum, one of those mornings where either I’ll feel all better in an hour or two or feel much worse, but no way to tell in advance.
Problem was, I had to leave in twenty minutes to make my lesson time.
So I packed up my flight bag and got in the car and headed west. Either I was going to feel alright when I got there, or I was taking a long drive for nothing and I’d need to cancel. The rising sun was behind me, and the increasing light did not prompt a return of the headache. OK, so far, so good.
One thing about setting out before sunrise on Sunday morning - darn little traffic to contend with. Made for a low-stress drive, almost enjoyable. I made good time and arrived at Morris about 40 minutes early. No problem. I got out of the car. Two hours sitting and driving had not improved my joints even if my other grumbles had faded by then.
Well, heck, I was here early and if there’s one thing an airport has it’s a lot of flat space that is suitable for walking as long as you’re willing to keep an eye out for heavy machinery. So I was doing just that when I went by the “gas shack”, trying to get the cold-morning stiffness out of my knees. A middle-aged man came out of building who I didn’t recognize, just some anonymous and typical airport inhabitant. He lowered his glasses down his nose, looked over them at me, and asked “Are you ready to fly?”
Gosh darn, the voice was sure famillar!
It was J. Unrecognizable because I’d never seen him outside of shorts and short-sleeved shirt and, oh yeah, he did use reading glasses, didn’t he? And here he was in pants and sweatshirt. I looked at my watch. He was early. I mentioned as much, and that I’d like to get the kinks out after driving for an hour and a half. He nodded, told me to take my time getting ready, and let him know when I was ready to go.
So I spent another five minutes getting the kinks out, then fell into the routine of getting ready to fly. That meant, among other things, going back to the car to get my headset and an extra seat cushion, digging out the sunglasses I usually use for flying, and realizing I’d forgotten a sun visor - oops, and such a clear blue sky and blazing morning sun today. Then find the correct clipboard and paperwork for the airplane. Off to the hangar to open the big door and preflight the airplane. Drag the airplane out of the hangar for fueling. All the usual preliminaries.
By this time J had shown up. He had, in fact, shown up in time to help me figure out the new tow bar which, I’m sure, made logical sense to the designer. The arrangement that cradled the back wheel of the Citrabria worked well enough, and it did seem marginally easier to steer the plane with it, but getting it off was a little more complicated. Couldn’t figure out how to get it off the back wheel easily, then we had it off the wheel but these two prongs were sticking up (they were what held the back wheel) and not fitting in the clearance between ground and airplane tail. We didn’t want rip the fabric covering of the airplane doing this and, to be honest, the fabric on this plane was showing its age already. It would have looked even worse if there wasn’t orange as well as white duct tape to blend in with the paint scheme. Finally, I just reached down, grabbed the handle mounted on the tail for just such occassions, and lifted up, giving J enough clearance to get the fancy new towbar out from under the airplane.
As my back, arm, and thigh muscles registered the suddenly increased load on my skeleton I found myself thinking God, this thing weighs a ton…. No, it weighs three quarters of a ton and next time ask the man to do the heavy lifting, how about it? Well, maybe I was stiff this morning but I seemed to be at full strength muscle-wise.
J stowed the tow bar, the line guy got the thing fueled, I shooed away the fuel truck, and both J and I got in. It was the usual routine from then on: start it up, taxi to an out of the way spot, do the engine checks, then head out to the runway. I almost teased J about getting all bundled up, but she who wears long underwear and wool socks should probably shut up about such things.
“What are we doing today?” I asked as I looked for traffic.
“Let’s go to Cushing and do some takeoffs and landings there, then we’ll come back here.”
So that’s what we did. The flight over to Cushing provided some opportunity to discuss cold weather and this particular airplane, including where the vents were, how they open and closed, and the cabin heat. Didn’t use the cabin heat that day - my preference is to dress for the weather rather than depending on the heater systems in small airplanes, which may or may not be reliable. The way they’re built also makes for a small but real risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. I’m probably a little more paranoid than I need to be about such things, but the idea of accidently gassing myself while several thousand feet above the ground and possibly passing out is not appealing in the least. No doubt the death of my oldest sister by carbon monoxide contributes to this mindset. Which is why on the morning in question I was wearing gloves and an insulated vest. If you fly with me in the winter time bring warm clothes, it has to be very cold before I turn on the heat.
There’s also the fact that the day usually warms up as time goes by, and with all the windows in a cockpit a sunny day will start a nice greenhouse effect. After the second landing of the morning I was getting a little too warm, so I paused before take-off and asked J to hold the brakes while I peeled off a layer.
No problem, J was more than willing to watch the airplane for a couple minutes. Oh, wait - there was a problem. Normally I am not aware of the small confines of the Citabria cockpit. For one thing, I’m not very big myself so under normal conditions there’s plenty of room for my knees and elbows. Side-to-side seating in the planes I fly… well, think of the passenger seating on Southwest - but more cozy yet. With tandem seating I’m not shoulder to shoulder with another (almost always larger) person, so it felt roomier. It’s not, really. As I rapidly proved by attempting to unwrap my vest. Even with the seat belts off this wasn’t happening. It was starting to resemble the Three Stooges all together in a phone booth or closet, complete with frustrated Curly noises coming from me, except it was just me in the front seat of this airplane.
At some point J reached forward from where he sat and gave me a hand, being a gentleman. Once it was off he tossed my vest in the tail of the plane, behind his seat, and helped me get the safety harness untangled which I had somehow managed to knot up while thrashing about in the front seat.
Oh, yeah. I’m feeling really competant right now… Jeez, the woman can fly airplanes but she can’t take a jacket off without assistance. Oh, boy, that’s good for the ego.
If J was laughing at me he was doing it quietly, behind my back, where I wouldn’t have to know about it.
Well, at least I got my straps all buckled back together without help. I readjusted everything, tucked the strap ends in so they wouldn’t get tangled with my co-pilot’s feet, and resumed the morning’s excercise. Another fine take-off, turn to crosswind, turn onto the downwind, level off, and from the back:
“How do you feel about doing this by yourself?”
“You mean solo?”
“Yes.”
Huh. How did I feel about it? Almost instantly, my mind said “not today”. Why was that? I was sure it was the correct answer, but why? Not quite confident in my own self, still that nag of self-doubt. I could have muttered to myself about not feeling 100% , about the four week gap between today and the last time I had been in the Citabria, and a number of other excuses, too many things OK but just not quite as good as I’d like this morning, but the bottom line was I just didn’t feel quite ready, not yet, not today.
So that’s what I said - almost but not quite. Not today. To which J said OK, let’s go back to Morris and do some work on pavement. So we did. And I did alright for a few hard surface landings, after which J said it was time for break, he didn’t want me to get worn out if I was to be flying that afternoon. So we went and parked the airplane, and I went out to find some lunch while J went in search of his next student. Just another average day at Morris airport.
After a bite to eat (ham and toast - one of the better choices at the airport restaurant, oddly enough. I’m not a fan of their eggs.) I returned to the airport office. I was still feeling a little low on energy and stiff in the joints. I lay down on the couch for a little rest and thinking (no snoring - wasn’t thinking that hard!).
First item under consideration was if I up to another hour and a half in a cockpit. I thought so, but kicking back and relaxing wouldn’t hurt anything. If a couple hours passed and I changed my mind it’s not like anyone was going to be critical. I’m normally gonzo to fly, so if I say I’m not up to it folks believe me. That’s pretty much the way it is with any pilot - there’s usually more problems with having to hold us back than in pushing us forward.
Which brought me back to J’s question - how did I feel about soloing the Citrabria? Not today. No further questions.
The next time I was out at Morris I asked him about that question - if I had said yes, would he have gotten out at Cushing. And he said that, yes, he would have. But I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t that my hands and feet and skills weren’t ready - if J didn’t think I had the goods to handle it he wouldn’t have suggested the idea. But while J can evaluate my skills he doesn’t know what’s going on between my ears unless he asks me. He also has to trust me to be honest in my answer, too. We all have less than perfect days, and while sometimes that’s obvious sometimes it’s not.
It opened up a short discussion on the mental aspects of flight. At a certain point - and it happens fairly quick - you’ve got the basics of making the machine do what you want it to do. Sure, you’ll spend a lifetime refining those skills, and different airplanes have different nuances, but the basics are there. What took so much time and effort with the tailwheels was learning the ground handling - I didn’t really need anyone to show me how to fly it once it was off the ground beyond those nuances I’d need to learn in any new airplane… which only take about an hour or two to achieve competence in, if that long. It was the ground handling that was new. Now that I’ve got a grasp on that… well, jumping into another tailwheel airplane wasn’t going to take as much time and effort as that first learning experience in the Citabria. Same thing when I was learning to fly with an adjustable pitch prop or retractable landing gear - most of the time was spent dealing with those two systems, not on how to turn or climb or descend (except where affected by those systems) because I already knew how to do that. I know how to fly, and it doesn’t change that much from airplane to airplane.
But the mental game – that never stops being a challenge. You have to believe you can fly, you have to believe you can handle whatever may come up or you have no business leaving the ground by yourself - much less with passengers depending on you for a safe return.
You should no more attempt to fly with broken self confidence than with a broken airplane.
So when J asked me “Are you ready to fly this airplane by yourself?” and I said “No - not today.” he understood that to mean that I didn’t quite have total confidence in myself that morning. Didn’t matter why (although if it became a chronic situation that would need to be remedied), far better to let me do a few more supervised trips around the pattern than to push. Although I’ve noticed he’s pretty good at boosting a student’s self-confidence - seems to have a real knack for it. And I have no doubt that he’s capable of pushing his fledglings out of the nest if that’s what they really need.
In the end, though, the decision is mine.
That’s something about flight training that isn’t always understood by the non-pilot. It’s not the student-subservient-to-the-teacher situation that some people assume. Sure, when you first start flight training - whether primary or more advanced skills - you are dependent on that other person sitting next to you. The whole point, though, is to get you to where you don’t need that other person, where you’re independent and in command. Pretty early on the student has to start making decisions.
When, like me, you already have your private pilot’s license and you’re going back to learn something new an instructor is more of a coach than what some folks would think of as a teacher. I don’t pay J to fly the airplane for me - I pay him to teach me to fly better. Sometimes that involves him demonstrating a technique, but much more often it’s a critique of what I’m doing. I’m flying the airplane, not him.
As a practical matter, that means I’m still pilot in command. We don’t get in the airplane until I say the pre-flight is done. We don’t leave the ground until I am ready. If I feel a need to abort a landing I don’t need to ask J’s permission first - I just do it. If I decide to end a lesson early that’s my privilege (although it’s pretty rare that ever happens). Sure, J has some veto power - he’ll take over to prevent an accident - but in a really good learning environment the instrutor-student relationship in aviation is more a partnership than a senior-junior situation. The trick, of course, is to find those good learning environments.
Which is why I sometimes tell beginning pilots not to be too passive - you need to speak up, ask questions, and make decisions. One day it will be you, alone, up in the sky having to deal with what is euphemistically called “a situation”. You will be the only one who can save the day. It will be up to you to make real life-or-death decisions, with real consequences. Before you ever leave the ground you had better be confident in your ability to handle that level of responsibility.
Which is why pilots can be such insufferable egotistical jerks - if we weren’t that full of ourselves we wouldn’t leave the ground. It does require a certain arrogance to fling yourself into an environment which is both hostile and alien to your physical self. We wern’t born with wings, after all, and our flying machines are about as natural as scuba gear and submarines or oxygen bottles and down parkas on Everest.
The flip side of the modern day miracle of flight, though, it being honest with yourself. Sure, you have an overblown pilot’s ego and think you’re a skygod… but “skygod” is not a compliment among pilots. You are not a god, and you need to remember that. You need to be self-honest enough to say “not today”, even to something you’ve worked towards and labored long and hard to do. You need to know when the best course is yet another hour of instruction, to wait for another day, to hold back and wait for better conditions, whether external or internal.
Did I make the right decision, to put off my first solo flight in the Citabria? Yes. Who makes that judgement call? I do. Because that’s my responsibility as pilot in command. I deal with the consequences, as well as the rewards, of any flight where I take the controls… or walk away from the machine, to wait for another time.
When I finally did solo the Citabria is was on a day where I felt much better about the idea, and even then it got challenging in a heart-pounding way. But that’s another story…
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