There’s nothing on earth that can quite compare to flying fighters. There, I’ve said it.
Nothing like a good, hard cat shot on a clear, crisp day. Nothing like hurling yourself into a many v many merge with 1100 knots of closure in the HUD, with a visual on your well-trained wingmen, perfect situational awareness and a tally-ho on all the bad guys. Nothing like seeing the target that you’ve spent the last many several hours coming to know like the hairs on the back of your hand disappear in a ball of smoke and fire because you put the ordnance precisely where it was intended, and nowhere else. Nothing like putting her back down on your first try, when the weather is down to 200 and a half in mist and rain, the deck is moving around and there’s no more gas in the air if you get it wrong.
Nothing.
But it doesn’t start there. It starts in primary flight training. Where my own number one son is heading, sometime after his commissioning in May.
I never taught in primary, although I did spent 18 purgatorial months instructing in the T-2C Buckeye. By the time my students offered themselves unto me, they had already received extensive ground and simulator instruction, soloed in a million dollar trainer, flown formation and night flights and become familiar, if not adept, at instrument approaches. None of which is particularly “fun,” although the doing of it well can be exceptionally rewarding. Because in time, depending on the breaks, it could place you on a catapult aboard 90,000 tons and four and one-half acres of American diplomacy. The steam leaking out of the cat tracks between your legs while you take tension. Forty-eight thousand pounds of jet, JP-5 and ordnance underneath you. Men you know, love and trust with your very life alongside you. A place to be in front of you. A place that’s not going to be there when you come back.
So anyway, SNO and I had an appointment to go flying this afternoon from Montgomery Field in Cessna 172. It’s not a T-34, nor yet an FA-18, but there are gross similarities. Put the yoke forward, the houses get bigger. Pull back, the houses get smaller. Keep pulling back, the houses start getting bigger again.
Every part of the TOPGUN instructor still left in me begged for a two hour brief in preparation for the flight, with detailed descriptions of minutely scripted maneuvers, what-if’s and contingency plans. But he’s my son, and flying is supposed to be fun. The time of sweating the details, of memorized checklists and juggling tennis balls while reciting emergency procedures is yet to come. We chatted about what we were going to do in a casual way over a pair of tacos and a chicken quesadilla, preflighted the machine and departed VFR to the west under the lateral limits of the Class B airspace.
Bumpy, on the way out. Did he want the aircraft? Not yet. Not knowing, as of yet, that there’s little you can or want to do about turbulence, apart from riding it out. If the bumpies push you up and you try to counteract them, it’s better than even odds that your control input will arrive just in time for the downdraft to make you wish you hadn’t. It got better off the coast.
The FAA requires a minimum of 20 hours prior to a traffic pattern solo with your instructor watching nervously, and twice that is probably the mean. It took 13 flights in the T-34 before they gave you the keys and let you wander off on your lonesome. Somewhere between 20 and 30 hours of flight time. Fully expecting that you’d take her out to the operating area, do your do and then bring her back in one piece. It’s good training, Navy training. Efficient. Analytical. Merciless.
North of the Del Mar fairgrounds we elevated to 2500 feet for some turns and level speed changes. The things you just know are entirely new to one who doesn’t know them yet. The way that you fly the aicraft both smoothly and positively. The fact that deviations are unacceptable. That you might never get to perfection in altitude, airspeed and bank angle, but that there was no excuse to not always be correcting towards perfection. That there’s no such thing as “close enough.”
Because somewhere ahead of you are axial winds, a rolling deck, reduced visibility and a compelling need to put her down in the spaghetti on your very first try. That you need to do the very best you can when it’s easy, so that you can do it at all when it’s hard.
But all of that is yet to come. First some visual navigation, those turns, and a pair of power off stalls. The stated need to hold the nose up as the airspeed decreases. That altimeter bearing mute witness to a failure to do so. The stall horn, the wing rock, the power coming up, the carb heat off, the right rudder to balance out the p-factor and torque, the very slight easing of back stick pressure to break the stall. The positive rate of climb.
There was so much more to show him, so much more to teach and learn. But we were out of time.
Maybe next weekend.
Yeah, I’m not sure I’d want you as my flight instructor anyway. Doubly so if you were my father. Nothing personal, I just suspect it’d be a heck of a lot of pressure and the Cessna has no point other that to be an enjoyable flying experience.
On another note: I don’t know where that 20 hour to solo number comes from. I had my Cessna pattern solo at 6.9 hours total time.
I understand what you’re saying, I do. But he’s my son.
You do what you can.
It was so long ago, I have no idea how many hours I had in the Ol’ Pteradactyl when I solo’ed on my way to my private tablet back in the Stone Age. It was probably somewhere around 10 tho.
The 20 – 30 number sounds about right for the T-34 tho. FAM-14, I think it was.
*grin*
Very cool, Lex. Congrats on the self-control.
Seriously, I’m sure I’m not the only reader looking forward to following his official flight training throug your eyes. It’ll be interesting, I’m sure…
Oh, and great writing, too–loved the opening.
Lex:
And to think I got to spend a 1.4 this afternoon trying my first wheel landings in the Citabria in gusting crosswinds. I think you got the better end of the deal! (I think my instructor would agree!)
One word of perspective: Both my sister and I learned to sail at Coronado Yacht Club, a long, long time ago. While we grew up on the family sailboat, my dad quickly figured out that him trying to teach us had some counter-productive issues; we were still in the “parent-child” mode of communicating/listening, not the “instructor-student.” So my sister and I both took summer sailing lessons and were “given the keys” as it were to first our smaller boat and then the larger one. Just be attuned to the learning modes, is all I’m sayin’…
Best,
Comjam
Lex – plus or minue 100 ft, 10º, and 10 knots… I know it’s tough.
It seems so strange, but in General Aviation the brief is pretty much nonexistent.
One day at the DZ, whilst going about my duties of introducing students to the joys of freefall, packing student rigs, etc, etc, etc…I was vaguely aware of the raised voices about 40 ft away, a SEAL trying to teach his wife how to pack.
Lou came storming over and, while gritting his teeth, asked if I could teach her how to pack her chute. Sure…I offered.
About an hour later, she was doing fine. No messy “domestic violence” stories to deal with, just another capable packer.
I took away from that that that “we” tend to project knowledge onto those close to us, for, after all, they have seen us doing “it” so many times, just how come they act like they don’t know/understand/get it? To me she was another student, to him, the one who should have learned it already.
The danger is in us, the “instructor” in this case, becoming the problem sometimes and it’s good and proper to find the person you know you can trust their life with and ask if they can do the honors. You get a chance to see, most likely, a trusted friend benefit in the effort to help the younger/new one along.
What’s not to like about that?
Regarding the post: It’s a pleasure to read such well woven words, filled with direct and indirect humor and seriousness, the ordinary and the extraordinary, sometimes in the same sentence.
I feel the urge to slow down, to fully grasp the sentences, yet wanting to read faster to see what well turned phrase is next up to bat. Torture, I say, TORTURE!
Some of my best memories come from VT-1, Lex. The T-34 was both dependable and forgiving, at least to a certain degree, for a first time experience at flying.
Too much fun, too many stories, too many lies… good hops and great friends! We all did it together, the way it was supposed to happen… as a team.
I’ve kept my solo certificate framed on my office wall and still remember my instructor’s name. Best wishes to your SNO in the pursuit of his chosen … pursuit.
Both of my parents taught us to drive cars. By their example I was smart enough to let others teach my fiance/wife to:
play golf
sail
ski
It didn’t work out as well as I hoped but it was way better than the alternative. By all means, use the very best aviator you know to teach SNO to be the most skillful, prudent and oldest aviator you will ever know.
I know he won’t have a problem with that.
Lex:
While I understand what you say about flying fighters being the summit of existence once you’ve qualified and done it for a while, I wonder about the times (and I am guessing that such times come to most) when you had to question what you had chosen and worked so hard to be doing? In my mind’s eye such questions would come when (or after) doing night recoveries in bad weather that would make a pilot think: ‘Why did I want to do this? Why am I going to continue to do this?’ Another could be from a “The Worst Day Ever” experience. I think about this in connection with combat experiences of soldiers and Marines, too — they, in the main, go back for more when told to do so.
But you continued to do it. Lots of pilots do. Does the questioning stop? Does it happen less often? It sounds like there is a sort of morbid fascination with the dangers and challenges that makes you come back again and again … something very addictive in its way.
SteveC,
It comes from a couple places, not the least of which is the understanding that “I can do this”. Once you comprehend that thing, once you get the taste in your mouth and the blood in your teeth of the full on belief that YES! I know how to do this, then there is nothing that will ever allow you to sit back while others take the lead.
In the movie “The Replacements”, Gene Hackman’s character has a saying that “True competitors want the ball”. I want the ball. When the game is on the line, when lives are in jeopardy, when the mission demands absolute accuracy and timing, I want to be the one calling the shot. I want to be in command, in the front, taking the point.
Adrenaline is the most addictive drug known to man. The reason old airdales and old soldiers sit around and tell stories to each other is because they are trying to get that rush one more time.
I lived that life, and when I close my eyes I can still smell the scent of JP5, hear the whine of the turbines and feel the lift under the wings as 150,000 pounds of metal takes leave of the earth and bonds with the sky.
I never got to fly the bird. My eyes went south during training, so I took the back seat and ran the sensor station.
Let me tell you that there was no less of the thrill of the hunt. I always wanted to be the one responsible for finding the target, for picking the fly specks out of the pepper and knowing that I had that target dead to rights. It was no different than the hunter who holds the cross hairs on a distant buck, when time stands still, and hunter and hunted cross over into a different plane.
I always kept a humble profile amongst my peers, but I knew that, in that shop, amongst all the other AW’s, I was the best. Push come to shove, I wanted to to, and expected to, be the one who bagged the kill.
As we said in VP-10, it’s hard to be humble when you’re a 10! heh.
The problem with airdales is that it’s always hard to find a room big enough to contain all the egos ,,:)
Thanks, Tim. I understand the concept in my gut. I understand the feeling – not from military service, but from other activities not dangerous to my existence, but still that feeling was there. I guess what my point was and is is to try to find a way to put into words a summary of the feeling: Confidence plus experience plus training plus responsibility plus all those things that combine to make a person do things that are plainly difficult and at times unpleasant.
Have you read “Flight of the Intruder” by Stephen Coontz? He covers it there in his writing, but better, like Lex, from his emotion which comes clearly through underlying the words.
A further point that perhaps says it better. Henry V’s exhortation at Agincourt, in Shakespeares play of the same name. He speaks of honour, and what is important to a man. Henry says that we all owe God a death, and that if we are to be defeated, then why worry? But if we are to overcome, to win out, then the fewer to share the experience with means the greater the glory for all involved. The larger the share for each. That’s no small thing to consider.
We each take with us only so much when we travel to that land from whose bourne no traveler has ever returned. We all welcomed the challenge, scared beyond belief, but ready to face it, because it was a challenge to face down, because it had to be met, because it was there and was what we signed up to do, and anyways, no one else was going to do it for us.
Maybe I’m not articulating it well, but to be honest, in the hardest times, when the worst needed to be faced, I never had a problem with saying “I’ll go.” I can’t explain that. It wasn’t a thump my chest moment, or anything at all like that. I wasn’t particularly brave. I just knew that I could do the job, and I wanted the ball in my hands. It’s like that for a lot of guys. It’s also so very hard to explain.
Ah well…
Humble1310@#1
I dunno, the USAF thought the 172 was good for SOMETHING–it was the primary trainer when I went thru plt tng prior to transitioning to T-37s. Although I always wondered what the hey, as the 172 was what most of us (but not all) trained with in ROTC with roughly same syllabus. Guess they wanted to be sure everyone was “standardized” prior to 37s (plus I heard they didn’t trust the quality of inst. in some of the ROTC programs.)
STEVEC/
Not EVERYBODY keeps coming back. I once told the story here in another context of the Father of one of my good friends in New Orleans (just recently passed) who was a Navy F6F Hellcat/F4U corsair pilot in the Pacific in WWII. He seemed to have rather enjoyed the experience, so I asked why he got out after VJ Day. He replied that he had made 7 carrier night traps (when it was REALLY primitive) and that after that “I figured if I wanted to continue living I’d better find another line of work.” LOL! (and a finer gentleman you couldn’t find)
While I’m thinking of him, I should mention that upon finding out he was originally from Kansas, I remarked upon the fact that so many land-locked mid-westerners seemed to join the Navy to see the world, etc., like N. Dakota’s Joe Foss, et al. He laughed and said that when he was taking his induction/flight physical in Calif. the Flt Surgeon asked: “Where ya from son?” and when he replied Kansas, the Doc exploded: “Kansas!! What is it with you guys from Kansas? Every third damn SOB that comes thru the line is from Kansas!” LOL!
Well, he did come back: 7 times for night traps…and he didn’t leave until the war was over, either. In my book, he kept the faith. Completely.
My post was about that inner ‘other voice’ which sometimes chimes in to say, “Hey, dummy, why did you decide to do THIS?” And how pilots deal with that and continue on. I mean, as Lex has said before: it ain’t all beer and skittles.
Curtis@#8
LOL. I watched my Father try to teach my Mother how to drive with her ending up in tears over fifty yrs ago–remember the scene as if it were yesterday. Thank God my wife was already a hot-rodder when I met her or I’m sure, knowing her fiery temperment, it would have been divorce city. It’s also why I didn’t try to teach my son tennis, as my experience with my own Father (a college tennis coach) developed into a love-hate thing–even though it got me good enough to to be ranked and earn a college tennis scholarship.
Hey, at least he wants to do it. I recall reading a book by Reeve Lindbergh, in which she describes her Dad taking her flying in, I believe, yes it was a Champ. She described the experience from a totally tourist point of view, not interested in the details, not having any desire to learn how to do it herself, not having any desire to be taught to fly by Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Himself and her Dad! What a silly hippy doo-dah!
In other news, I have had to remove to a new place and my current host, found for me by my pastor, is a former naval aviation person and an excellent cook. Was an Aviation Firecontrolman (AQsomething?) during the Viet-Nam thing aboard Coral Sea and America. I’m trying to get him to look at this site, but he says blogs are silly and he doesn’t have the time
I agree that most blogs are silly, and that it is a bit of a challenge to find the gems. This is one of the gems.
Very much hope your friend takes the time to peruse even just a few back posts; he will be hooked!
I taught my wife to drive stick in our Wrangler.
It actually went surprisingly well and my father was very impressed at my ability to remain calm whilst teaching.
I’m currently “teaching” my 15 year old daughter to fly. It helps that the only goal is to get her far enough along to act as the autopilot that her mother (the CFO: Chief Female Obstructionist) won’t let me buy. I’m adopting the attitude that she’s welcome to learn if she chooses to, but I can’t/won’t force her.
Even if she doesn’t keep up with it, I’m already finding personal benefit to myself in learning to “unlearn” what I take to be automatic knowledge. For example, heading south and I told her to turn to the east. I was momentarily surprised when she said “Which way is that??”
It’s actually quite fun; I hope I don’t ruin it for myself by becoming overly invested in it.
SNO – I know you must come in here and snuff about from time–time. If’n I was you, I would
. Hey bud. You’ve got it made. Listen to the ol’Man. You’re getting something that money cannot buy. Trust me.
I’m a crappy teacher. I’m white-knuckling just sitting there watching my boy learn to drive. How the heck do you impart all the data/second that comes from a million miles on the road into a sentence? It would be impossible to teach him to fly. I’d blow a gasket!
b2
When instructing I occasionally used to get the “troubled child” sent my way. Invariably they had the academic portion, but for some reason it wasn’t transferring to the cockpit. We used to call them “plumbers”. couldn’t grasp the relationship between attitude, airspeed, and altitude. I used to put them in the pattern, and have them cover up the altimeter, and airspeed with 3M sticky notes. I’d put them at 1000 ft on downwind at the right airpseed, say “your airplane” and tell them to fly by looking outside. Notice the groundspeed, notice the relationship between alt and things on the ground. Notice throttle position. Get the sight picture of abeam. 99% would fly a constantly improving pattern – hit the numbers, land in the box, maintain directional control. So I told them “you can fly – you’re just having trouble processing information, which is a different problem”. And at this stage of training all they needed was a little “win” to juice the confidence. So the problem children became my own, they’d show up with a stack of sticky notes, and away we’d go. I’m sure the next crew got in and wondered what the heck was going on with little yellow post-its all over the place. Eventually off came the post-its, they could process the info, and it finally CLICKED!! Now that was a good hop when they’d come back all smiles and know that they were going to get washed out of their dreams. All of those “children” got their wings but one, and that poor sod did great during the day, but was petrified at night. Told him to go join the Air Force cuz the night belonged to the Navy (just kidding blue suiters).
I envy Lex the opportunity to start young son on such a wonderful journey. I can still remember Staff Sgt Payne, United States Marine Corp, asking me “what the f___ you think you’re doing looking up at that airplane? You’ll’ never get to fly that thing so just quit now” as I watched the Blue Angels roar overhead at NAS Pensacola my first day of AOCS while doing pushups.
Lex,
There never is enough time.
My Son is only 10 and I have yet to take him up. Should work toward that… now that I am so moved by your story. Never enough time though. Soon they grow up and have lives of their own and are away on their own adventures. Thank you for reminding me. Good stuff!
We will always, eventually, run out of time with our loved ones… gotta make the days count.
“Maybe next weekend”
I respectfully disagree with Humble above. I feel that a person as articulate in writing as Captain Lex would very probably be very articulate when it comes to passing on skills. Of course, I’m about Captain Lex’s age so some of the “Senior Officer/Very Experienced Awe would probably be worn off. But just some mind you.
I think a lot about the scene from the Replacements that AW1 Tim uses above, but in a different way. If I have a skill, I sure as heck want to be the one to impart it to my kids. In other words, I want the ball.
The two younger ones are pretty good drivers, even though my daughter tends to be a lead foot. I don’t know where she learned that.
I’ve seen pictures of SNO with his Dad. I think he has the perfect Primary instructor. Let someone else do the harder stuff later, he’ll always remember that first instructor.
Which T-2C outfit? I remember 9, 23 and 26 and was in 26 from Feb 77 to Dec 78. I had to go back to sea with a workload like we had on “preferred shore duty.”
I liked the Buckeye. It was easy to work on and one guy could jack one up if he had to.
I taught my wife to drive stick. I suppose I was a bit impatient at times. The final exam was when I drove up a hill with about a 30 degree grade with a stop sign just shy of the summit. As someone pulled up behind us put the car in neutral, set the emergency brake, got out and told her “Your turn. Get in the driver’s seat and let’s go.”
Didn’t stall it. Didn’t roll back into the guy behind us.
First solo … not apparent that even 20 hours is adequate.
NTSB Identification: CEN09LA168
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, February 14, 2009 in Tulsa, OK…
piloted by a student pilot, sustained substantial damage …Riverside Airport (RVS), Tulsa, Oklahoma. … … The student pilot on board the airplane was not injured. …this was the student pilot’s first solo flight and her instructor observed from a distance. The pilot made a landing approach to runway 01R and flared prematurely. The airplane landed hard and bounced. The student pushed the nose down and the airplane struck the runway, collapsing the nose gear.
Any time in the air with your kids is like gold, regardless of how well the lessons are imparted and I’m sure you’re better at it then me. I’ve enjoyed it in poor conditions as well since it was not only a learning experience but something to spark conversation later on (Dad do you remember when you pranged theplane on the crosswind landing…).
SNO is a lucky guy to have you looking out for him.