When I was a very young and most inexperienced private pilot with all of about 100 hours, I had the opportunity to participate in an instrument flight flown by a fellow student from college. It was a most interesting and enlightening flight.<\/p>\n
“Gary” had about 230 flights hours at the time and his instrument rating could not be any fresher. He had about twice my flight hours and held an instrument rating. This made him the most experienced pilot in our peer group.<\/p>\n
Still, we were inexperienced and really didn’t know what we were doing. Oh, the blissful unawareness of the uneducated ignorant!<\/p>\n
It was a typical spring day for Florida. This translates into weak cold front pushing through to the south with the attendant problems of inclement weather\u2014replete with the probable thunderstorms.<\/p>\n
And of course, Gary and I ended up in the middle of one of the thunderstorms.<\/p>\n
At the time I was, at my level of experience, uhmm… how can I say this…?\u00a0 Totally clueless.<\/p>\n
We were being slammed around the inside of this cumulonimbus and I did not like it one bit. But hey! I was learning and wasn’t this what I was going to do as my career for the rest of my life? Time to man-up.<\/p>\n
Of course, we could not see anything beyond the cockpit. I was keeping watchful eye on the attitude indicator and Gary seemed to be doing a credible job keeping the wings level. We were bouncing around a bit, but Gary seemed do have it all under control.<\/p>\n
Until all hell broke loose.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, the clouds slammed us up and down with the appropriate excursions in bank. Gary was on the radio with Miami Center trying to find a way out of the mess.<\/p>\n
Center was vectoring us around and Gary was flying the airplane, trying to find Victor airways and intersections on the chart, and talking on the radio. In the meantime, we’re bouncing off the overhead, bulkheads, and door.<\/p>\n
Now it was getting dark. Oh, no, the sun was full up. It was just dark in the cloud<\/em>.<\/p>\n It was about this time The Thought<\/em> struck me: I can’t do this!<\/em> Gary was sitting in the left seat barely hanging on. He had a lot more experience than I did. I would never be able to do what he was doing!<\/p>\n I actually started to think I needed to consider other career fields.<\/p>\n At about the darkest moment, we broke out into daylight and clear air. Things settled down in the cockpit. I decided to wait on the idea of other career choices.<\/p>\n I’m glad I did.<\/p>\n I may have been intimidated that day 38 years ago. \u00a0But I learned later that as with anything in life, earning an instrument rating is something you accomplish one day at a time<\/em>.<\/p>\n You have to learn to crawl before you walk; then you must learn to walk fast. Then jog. After that, comes running.<\/p>\n Then one day, you find you have no trouble at all sprinting.<\/p>\n -30-<\/p>\n \u00a9 2011 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was a very young and most inexperienced private pilot with all of about 100 hours, I had the opportunity to participate in an instrument flight flown by a fellow student from college. It was a most interesting and … Continue reading