Pilot's Log (Copy) — S.D.Falchetti

As I sat at the table opposite the flight instructor, the sputtering roar of a Cessna’s engine cranked to life outside the window behind me. A VFR sectional map peaked out from under the documents of the instructor’s kneeboard. I imagined adventures contained within it. The instructor leaned forward, hands clasped. “What would you like from this discovery flight?”

I edged in. “I would like to fly the plane as much as humanely possible.”

The next ninety minutes were a whirlwind of excitement and newness: pre-flighting the 1973 Cessna Skyhawk M, climbing into the cramped cockpit, flipping switches and ticking checklist items, headsets with mics, new-pilot taxiing, then the runway streaking by with a pull of the yoke as the ground slipped away. I was flying, really flying.

You would think, as a writer, I would have the words to describe what it was like, but it feels like any word, no matter how colorful or superlative, falls short. The best I can do is let you hear my summary of the experience just twenty-four hours after I did it.

The hook was in: I wanted to learn to fly. After giving the flight school a call back with a YES, I was in.

The process of getting a pilot’s license turned out to be much harder than I’d expected, taking me nearly two years to complete. You are controlling a vehicle that moves on six different axis that receive inputs both from you and the wind. Landings were a particular challenge, a seventy-five miles-per-hour game of asphalt chicken where you blink just feet from catastrophe, leveling out to surf the wave of ground effect. Just the slightest over-input on the yoke as you flinch away and you balloon back up. Add pressure a little too late and you slam in a bone-jarring plane version of a belly flop, bouncing off the Earth until you crest like a roller coaster and plummet back down. The only way to learn how to do it is to keep failing until you succeed. It’s by touch. It’s a little like the Morpheus line in the Matrix, “Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!” My instructor said, “Stop thinking about landing, and land.” When you pull if off successfully, it’s a use the force moment, when you let yourself feel the plane’s energy and sink rate, the push of the wind and air wobbles, and your brain snaps it all into perfect sense and says now.

As I sat on the runway during my final stage check before my checkride, the instructor covered all the gauges on the panel. “You want me to take off and land with no instruments?” I asked. How would I know my airspeed, my altitude, my engine power? As he covered the last gauge he said, “That’s right. You know the plane better than you think.” It was like Obi-wan sliding down Luke’s blast helmet and handing him a lightsaber. He was right. I could tell the plane’s speed by how it felt, and its power setting by how the engine sounded. I flew a beautiful pattern and landed nicely.

Once I got my license (what pilots call a certificate), I realized I could fly wherever I wished. My first flight was fun romp around my local area. Want to see what it was like? Fly along with me here: