My Path to Becoming a Pilot

The Beginning
Learning to fly has been fun and challenging. I started flying in 1997 when I was in college at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I decided that I wanted to fly in the military and the military wants you to have at least your Private Pilot certificate before being considered for their pilot training program. So, I headed down to the local airport and started flight training in a Cessna 152 (a small two-seater airplane). Prior to this, my only other experience with flying was a ride in a Cessna 172 with a friend of the family when I was about fourteen years old.

The First Lesson
I went up for my "intro flight," (as it is widely known) with a flight instructor and the experience was incredible. Taking the controls and flying the airplane myself was an amazing feeling. It was also a bit challenging. As I tell my students now,..."Before, you were operating on only two planes (X & Y axis) as when you, say, drive a car. Now that you are in an airplane, we are introducing that third dimension (the Z axis), which is the vertical axis." Well, operating a vehicle with left, right and up and down capability was a whole new ball game. However, after a few lessons I quickly adjusted to the newness of three dimensions.

I flew with my instructor each lesson doing basic flight maneuvers such as slow flight, power- off stalls, power-on stalls and ground reference maneuvers, which help you to understand correcting for winds so as to fly the aircraft on a desired path over the ground. These basic maneuvers also instill piloting skills as well as strengthen your aircraft control. Once these maneuvers were accomplished with proficiency, we moved on to flying the traffic pattern and landings. Here's where it really gets fun, and challenging!

The Solo
After mastering (or close to it) landings, my instructor surprised me one day. He and I had just done three or four textbook landings and touch-and-go's when he asked me to make it a "full stop," which means exit the runway. He opened his door and as he crawled out of the little Cessna he said, "Good, now just do three more like the ones you just did."

With a hesitation in my voice I asked him, "Are you sure?" He simply said, "You're ready." As I taxied back to the runway, I couldn't believe what I was about to do. Yet, I had just done three beautiful landings with him, so there was a hint of "I-can-do-this" in the back of my mind. Confidently, I thought to myself, "What's the difference if that guy is or isn't sitting right there in that seat next to me?" Looking over at the empty seat was kind of chilling.

I did my before take-off checks and made a radio call to other pilots in the area that I was taxiing onto the runway. As I accelerated down the runway I kept telling myself, "You can do this, you can do this!" The little airplane left terra firma and there I was... I was flying solo. Like most other people do when they solo the first time, I talked to myself out loud around the pattern. I reminded myself that my instructor was only a radio call away. I performed three nice landings and then taxied back to the parking spot. I was ecstatic! I just successfully flew an airplane and made several nice landings and brought it safely back to its parking spot; and I did it alone.