CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 10 Issue 3 - 34

CHIEF'S CORNER
Over the years the excitement sort of wore off
or got buried or just misplaced. Sure, I enjoyed
seeing a student go beyond the rote stage and get
into the understanding and correlation stages,
what instructor wouldn't? But after leaving
full-time flight instructing and "working" in the
world of general aviation, the luster was gone.
Maybe a spark here or there as a colleague soloed
or earned a certificate. For a while I didn't do
any flying and then along came BasicMed. A shot
in the arm for a lot of pilots, myself included.
I brushed off the rust, polished my skills, and
started to instruct again. It was fun but there was
still something missing.
One of the nice things about my job is that I get
to go to a lot of airshows and fly-in events. Maybe
too many as I would quote a former colleague,
"yep, it's a loop and a roll, must be an airshow...
sigh." That changed at this year's AirVenture
because I spent the better part of a week with a
brand-new colleague who had never been around

GA before. She couldn't get enough of it! Every
day we'd watch the performers do their thing
and she loved every minute of it. Her excitement
became my excitement and then my challenge
to explain to her what she was looking at. Every
day-"John, should he be doing that?" "How does
it do that?" "What kind of airplane is that?!" Even
the most jaded pilot among us could not help
but be excited by her genuine pleasure at what
she was seeing. "I can't wait for my 90 days to be
up," she said, referring to the 90-day wait period
before an employee can begin flight training.
"How can I get started now?" "Well, when we go
back let's schedule some time to go fly with you
as a passenger, and then when the 90 days are up,
we'll get you hooked up with a flight instructor,"
I suggested. Unfortunately fate intervened and
she's laid up with a riding injury for longer than
her 90 days, but I know for a fact she's reading
the ground school texts and planning her escape
into the cockpit.

So why all this rambling about excitement?
Because sometimes we forget exactly what
brought us into general aviation in the first
place. We forget to exclaim over the blue color
of the taxiway lights or count the revolutions of
the airport beacon in the night sky or even the
reflections in the puddles on the ramp as we
walk out to the airplane. We miss the little things
that a newcomer sees and remarks over; we
gloss that over with "a loop and a roll" comment
and go about our very busy task of instructing
students. Take the time to see things through
your student's eyes, remember how it felt when
you got your first weather briefing or talked to
a controller or flew your first solo. Share their
excitement and let it infuse your passion to
teach, to educate, to fly. Plan fun things with
them, new locations, new adventures. A local
flight school that I follow on social media is
always flying somewhere as a group and they
have good turnouts! Rekindle that passion in
yourself and it will show in your students!

SHE COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF IT! EVERY DAY WE'D WATCH THE PERFORMERS DO THEIR THING AND SHE
LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. HER EXCITEMENT BECAME MY EXCITEMENT AND THEN MY CHALLENGE TO
EXPLAIN TO HER WHAT SHE WAS LOOKING AT.
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 10 Issue 3

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