The Day You Became a Better Pilot

There are a few days in a pilot’s life that you remember forever. I am not talking about your first solo or the day you got (or will get) your private certificate. These events are always well-preserved somewhere in your brain’s hippocampus. I’m talking about those days when you really learned something you didn’t know—something that might just save your life. Like an asymptotic curve, a pilot never reaches perfection, but each one of these experiences gets you closer. And if you really care, that pursuit of perfection becomes a satisfaction of its own.

A few of my own “awareness days” were occasioned by way of bad judgment. A close encounter with a thunderstorm in an underequipped Beechcraft Musketeer, piloted by a vastly underequipped young instrument pilot, left a mark. I’ve been allergic to convective activity ever since. A night flight in icing conditions in a Cessna 210 with my entire family on board (what was that about?) has made me respectful of icing and a devotee of anti-icing and deicing devices.

For decades, these types of encounters formed the basis of my flight planning and personal minimums. For instance, I didn’t fly at night. What I didn’t know, however, was if I was being foolishly conservative on one hand or foolhardy on the other. Single-pilot flying with naught but biennial proficiency checks left me wondering. Was I underusing increasingly capable airplanes, or was I risking more than I should under the illusion of accumulated experience and wisdom?

Two great friends mentored me while I was flying single pilot. Senior Capt. Rob Haynes has always had my back and encouraged me to grow. I’d call him at all hours of the day and night and ask if a proposed flight was doable or crazy. When it came to flying through a cold front with thunderstorms, he gave me this common-sense approach: “You can fly to the line, look for a way through, or you can turn around and land, but I would not cancel the flight.” Nine times out of 10, I made it through. He is my good friend for many reasons.

Doug Commins was my sim partner at Boeing 737 school, which I attended as a sort of “fantasy camp.” Doug was a pro, though, and patient with me. I’ll never forget sharing a bathroom break during our first day in the simulator. “Put the armrest down to help steady your pitch and bank during steep turns,” he said. It works. We are still good friends.

Even with these great friends, I still didn’t really know what I didn’t know.

Then I got a job flying Part 135. I was no longer a single-pilot guy with a private certificate and a Piper Cheyenne. Now I was an ATP flying constantly with others in a Cessna Citation CJ3, no less, and they were pros. I am going to name each of them because what they taught me is so central to my flying the Cessna CJ1 that my wife and I are now so fortunate to own. They deserve the thanks.

At Part 135 indoctrination training, I met Phil Smith, an Air Force Academy grad who went on to become the Air Force’s F-15 demo pilot, flying exhibitions all over the world when he wasn’t flying for real in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as he came off active duty, he was hired by the same 135 company as I was. We were quite a pair in indoc—the fighter pilot and the retired surgeon twice his age. Phil’s sense of joy about flying had an infectious interlocking with my own. He made the Cessna CJ3 type rating a lark. He taught me math and life skills. He is my good friend.

My initial-operating-experience check airman was Fred Pollino, a fellow Army vet—that’s not the half of it. Fred is a combat-wounded hero, and I once got a cut on my lip from a chip on a martini glass at the officer’s club; Fred exercised great patience during IOE as I busted altitudes and missed radio calls. He taught me that being safe didn’t mean being dour. He still makes me laugh.

Greg Longie held my hand one wintry night while landing at Teterboro, New Jersey (KTEB). Instructed to fly the ILS 6 circle-to-land Runway 1, Greg pointed out the ferocious crosswind at 1,500 feet and admonished me to start my turn toward the landing runway early to account for it. A Learjet subsequently crashed doing the same approach in similar wind conditions. That crew did not have a Capt. Longie on board.

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Once I made captain, I fell into a training rotation every six months with O’Neil Smith. O’Neil knows how to get that proficiency check nailed, and his competency rubbed off on me. Like many of the others mentioned here, he was great company on an overnight or when studying for a check ride together. He’s with the airlines now.

Steve MacDougal drove me nuts with his insistence on proper flow and checklist usage, but his lessons were always designed to make me better. Now, when I fly with airline friends, they will often compliment on my professionalism. They are really thanking Steve. So am I.

Darting around CBs while crossing Florida on a summer afternoon, Martin Parker taught me about real flying when thunderstorms are everywhere. “Nexrad is good, onboard radar is better, but the best avoidance instrument is the Mark One Eyeball.” Martin taught me to look out the window. I think of him every summer.

Courtney Crain has a degree in English literature and a way of making the cockpit a relaxed professional environment. She taught me by example to be generous with letting the other guy fly. She also knew, as did many others, how to find interesting restaurants in out of the way places.

When we got to Anguilla with a gaggle of drunken passengers, Capt. Rex Burns and I discovered that the toilet had been clogged and then overfilled with excrement and vomitus. There was no alternative but to hand-empty the lav with paper coffee cups into a bucket before we could remove it for cleaning. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Somehow Rex made it a hoot.

Come to think of it, a sense of humor is one connecting thread to all these pilots. As Andy Lemon used to say when I leveled off at 11,000 feet and let the airspeed slow to 250 knots, “What are we doing—building time?”

I feel much more comfortable in the cockpit now. My 53 years of flying has helped me build a database for decision-making, but it was the three years in the 135 world that actually were the “days” I became a pilot. If you have been fortunate enough to fly 121 or 135, you will remember those days. If not, try to make each flight a perfect one. You will come close.

his story appeared in the October 2020 issue of Flying Magazine