Flight Training - June 2013 - 6

RIGHT SEAT

By Ian J. Twombly
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THE JERK

Publisher | Craig L. Fuller

MOVING YOUR FUN THRESHOLD

t occurred to me recently that I could be an elitist jerk.
Not the type of elitist who compares addresses, job titles, or
degree-granting location with acquaintances. Worse, I think
I may be an airplane elitist.

This rather alarming moment of selfreflection didn’t come to me randomly.
It was during a checkout in a Cessna
172S. We were flying along at around
100 knots, getting bumped back and
forth on our way to an airport to do a
landing. This just isn’t that much fun,
I thought.
I was a bit heartbroken. Have I
become so jaded by the excellent flying
experiences I’ve been lucky enough
to have (appreciation cancels out ego,
right?) that a humble trainer no longer
excites me? Maybe. But I think it’s something else.
The Skyhawk is an undeniably good
training airplane—forgiving without
being easy—as is Piper’s Cherokee
series, the Diamond trainers, and so on.

pose. The Skyhawks and Cherokees of
the world were built for training and a
little light transportation. They were
not meant to be pilot career-sustaining
wunderplanes that do it all. They are
a compromise, with training taking
three-fifths.
When you consider why you got into
flying, learning a new skill and taking on
a challenge likely were part of the reason. But surely they’re not the primary
reasons. Those are fun, adventure, family
travel, business travel, or something
similar. And there are excellent purposebuilt airplanes for each.
The point is this: The time may come
when it no longer seems worth it to shell
out $130 an hour or more for a training
airplane. When that happens, don’t stop

HAVE I BECOME SO JADED BY THE EXCELLENT
FLYING EXPERIENCES I'VE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH
TO HAVE THAT A HUMBLE TRAINER NO LONGER
EXCITES ME?
Learning to do stalls, land, and fly on
cross-countries all seem thrilling when
you’re in training, and the airplane that
enables that feeling hopefully still makes
you tingle a bit when you first walk up to
it for the day’s lesson. And for me, training a student in one of these airplanes is
still a joyful experience.
Problems start when you finish training and launch your own adventures.
Initially they are all incredible and any
airplane will be brilliant for the job. But
then you want to go faster. Or higher. Or
longer. Talk to any pilot and he or she
will admit this. At a certain point, it’s
time for a change.
This is when you start to realize that
airplanes are built for a specific pur-

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

flying altogether. Remember why it is
you started doing this in the first place,
and pursue it.
After all, the beauty of aviation is that
you can connect with your object of
desire easier than in almost any other
activity. We’re a tight-knit community,
and pilots help other pilots. Getting a
ride in, buying a share of, or owning your
dream airplane is actually pretty easy.
You should feel justified in pursuing
your new dream threshold. Follow your
desires. Aviation will be there for you.
You just have to take it.
Email Editor Ian J. Twombly at ian.twombly@aopa.
org; Twitter: ijtwombly; and visit Flight Training on
Facebook.

Senior VP, Media/Editor in Chief | Thomas B. Haines
Editor | Ian J. Twombly
Editor at Large | Thomas A. Horne
Managing Editor | Julie Summers Walker
Technical Editors | Mike Collins, Jill W. Tallman
Senior Editors | Dave Hirschman, Alton K. Marsh
Editorial and Production Assistant | Sylvia Horne
Administrative Assistant | Miriam E. Stoner
Contributors | Pete Bedell, Greg Brown, LeRoy Cook,
Budd Davisson, Rod Machado, Walter Miller, Dan
Namowitz, Wayne Phillips, Bob Schmelzer,
Jack Williams, Kathy Yodice

Design Director | Michael E. Kline
Art Directors | Elizabeth Z. Jones, Jill C. Benton
Senior Photographer | Mike Fizer
Photographer | Chris Rose

eMedia Managing Editor | Alyssa J. Miller
eMedia Editor | Sarah Brown
Web Production Manager | Lezlie Ramsey

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Flight Training - June 2013

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