It was November of 2018. I had not flown since 1996 due to a well developed fear of flying. That fear was brought on by a few crashes and (what I considered) completely reasonable reasons NOT to fly.
My instructor, Jack, was quiet. He didn’t give me instruction, rather allowed me to awkwardly struggle through the checklists, helping me when I had no idea. We taxied down the cold taxiway to the end of runway 28. We stopped at the hold line and my heart started pounding as I worked through the overwhelming tasks and sense of doom. I swallowed deeply, hid my fear and looked at the checklist.
When complete, Jack said, “give her a little throttle”. We moved onto the runway. I waiting for more instruction, but none came. I pushed the pedal on the right. The old Piper Cherokee turned in response with a rattle and clunk. I pushed the throttle in. The plane shook and shudder as it quickly picked up speed. The airspeed went well into the green, past the “rotate speed” – when I should have pulled the yoke back.
As we gained speed the aircraft lost its patience and climbed into the air on its own. Jack said, “Keep your airspeed at 85 and climb to about – blah, blah, blah”. I didn’t hear anything else he said for a bit. Then he had me turn to the left and he started chatting about all the details of flying an airplane. I understood very little of it, my mind was blank with a cascade of frantic thoughts – none which stayed long enough to realize.
As my heart climbed into my throat, I glanced down and saw the familiar view of being 400 feet off the ground. I reminded myself that I would be fine with crashing and dying in a fireball.
My fear faded. I started listening to my instructor. Waves of fear would return over the next 50 minutes as we performed maneuvers and stalled the airplane. I had hoped for a better handle on my anxiety.
Then, as we turned to fly back to the airport, Jack pulled the mixture knob and the engine silenced. The wooshing propeller and wind whistled through the noise cancelling headset. “What do you do?”, Jack asked.
“Let you fly the plane?”, I responded. He retorted with silence, the engine still quiet. “I fly the airplane?”, I said.
“Then do it.”, he responded.
That little maneuver and his insistence on allowing me to handle the emergency of an “engine out” simulation was all it took. I brought the aircraft to glide speed, and started looking for a field to land. I did this based only on a tiny knowledge gleaned from books, youtube videos and flight simulators. Things I did before my first lesson to get a handle on my fears.
We approached the snow dusted field for a landing. He sat motionless and I was convinced that we were actually landing. Then, with only 100 feet to spare, he worked the mixture and throttle and the engine roared to life.
As we started climbing I notice all my fear was gone. It was replaced with a sense of relief mixed with confidence. Jack knew exactly how to eliminate my fear of flying in the first hour. This little lesson earned him my admiration and respect – including my secret nickname for him, “Obi-Wan- Kenobi”.
After landing, Jack told me I did great. I was drenched in adrenaline, and curiously, had a solid but awkward confidence.
That was my first time back in an aircraft in 22 years. A couple of dozen lessons later, I mounted some cameras before a solo flight to record myself doing checklists to share some technical aspects of flying the the traffic pattern. My fear of flying is a distance voice that now recommends risk management instead of avoidance.
Overcoming a fear is rewarding and terrifying. Like grieving, it takes time. A single lesson of controlling an emergency was the turning point for me. An interesting study of overcoming fears.
With that, I present to those that may someday fly with me (and anyone else interested) a video of starting a plane, taking off, flying and landing. These few procedures are a student pilot’s most difficult tasks to learn well (in most cases) and one of the most elusive things to perfect.
