Pencils

The noseprints are still there. They're not in the way and they won't interfere with my laughable attempts at graceful landings. I am in no hurry to get out the Plexus (tm) to remove them.

From takeoff to landing of her first flight, my grandaughter looked out the side window, getting quite good at identifying features on the ground.  Swimming pools were an easy catch, lots of farm buildings, and--to my surprise--a group of people on horseback.  I've never noticed a feature like that. 

Maybe because it takes some time for someone in the air to figure out exactly what one sees on the ground.  And if a pilot spends a lot of time looking at the ground while flying, the pilot is quite likely to hit it.  Landing on a runway is the ideal case; but fields, forrests, rivers, and sides of mountains represent possible, albeit less desirable, options.  It has all been tried. 

My granddaughter had that time to look down, though, and used it with enthusiasm. We also managed to overfly a shopping mall near us, and the Delaware river.  She picked out the bridge that we cross on the way to the beach in New Jersey.  The house was hard for her to find because the pool was covered, but that's OK.  Hopefully she will see it next time. 

My wife promoted herself from nervous passenger to aviation tour guide on this flight and helped out locating the landmarks.   Having a tour guide along on an intro flight is a good addition to the do's and don'ts of intro flying, and I'm glad my wife thought of it and volunteered to do it. 

After about a half hour, we asked, "Are you ready to go back?" My wife and I had promised a nervious mom that we would fly for less than an hour.

"No!"

Okay, we could fly around for a while longer. I was having fun and so was she.

The headset was a new experience for my granddaughter.  I had her try it on at home as a consolation prize after a weather cancellation of a previous sight seeing trip.  She thought the headset was cool and smiled, but I sensed a bit of "what's the point of this."  Her younger brother, apparently unencumbered by expectations or perhaps having a more recent memory of Bee Movie, got into the headset, talking into the microphone and grinning like a, well, little kid.  

When I turned on the radios and intercom after engine start, though, she got it; I looked back for the grin.  And moments later, she was just using the headset like an experienced pilot, chatting away in a normal tone of voice...no big deal.  She's a quick study. 

I expected a reaction on take-off, but it didn't happen.  But she's like that.  When she's faced with something new and interesting, she focusses on it intently.  That's a big change from her gregarious everyday face.  And you can see it in her face.  Well, I couldn't at the time, I was flying the airplane, but I have seen that contentration before.  I knew the silence meant she was taking it all in. 

Advice for introductory flights includes limiting turns to standard-rate.  For light airplanes a standard-rate turn means it takes two minutes to complete a complete 360-degree circle while holding a bank angle of 17-18 degrees.  And sure enough, standard-rate turns did not attract my granddaughter's attention.  But a 30-degree bank turn, regarded in aviation as a perfectly normal turn, got attention: "Whoa!"  So I now have anecdotal evidence to support the advice.

Having been rebuffed in an attempt to return to the airport, we fly on.  Her new school was within the planned sight-seeing area, so I flew over to it.  That school also happens to be a depot for the buses.  I had some trouble finding it, but my granddaughter did not.  "They look like pencils!"  Yup, they do.  Son of a gun.  School buses do look just like yellow number-2 pencils from an airplane. 

My wife also provided essential help in allowing me to deal with the airport traffic pattern on our return.  The two of them had a running conversation and allowed me the priviledge of operating "sterile cockpit" during that high-workload phase of the flight. 

The landing was OK.  Not one of my best efforts, but good enough to avoid a "Whoa!" from the back seat. 

My granddaughter hasn't talked much about a repeat trip. But I believe the seed has been planted...We'll see. Whaddya know? She left me wanting more. 

Clear!

My mom, when I was a younger lad, told me that the airplanes that don't have propellers are the ones you have to watch.

She didn't mean jets. For a time she worked weekends at Interflyte, a fixed base operator at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, and knew that if you could not see the propeller of a single-engined light airplane, it was probably turning. And while pilots are happiest when the propeller is turning, pilots try to avoid leaning on them when they're in motion.

Paine Field is home to Boeing's final assembly facility for the 747 and the 777, so it had its share of airplanes with no propellers. And one could on occasion see a light plane that clearly had its propeller removed, but most of the aircraft most of the people got near had nice visible stationary propellers.

The trouble comes when an airplane takes that first step toward flying, when the nice visible stationary propeller becomes an invisible working propeller.

From the beginning. pilot training emphasizes safety, risk assessment, and generally not causing injury or damage. And the checklists pilots are trained to follow normally include the following, or something similar:

• Throttle...................................... Open ¼ inch.
• Propeller Area........................................ Clear
• Master Switch.......................................... On

That middle step, "Propeller Area...Clear," is more than an instruction to look around for people leaning on the prop. The pilot is supposed to open the window and shout "Clear!"

If you are visiting a small airport and hear that word, step away from any airplane you may be near and look around. Someone on the field is about to take the first steps into the air.

And if you happen to be sitting in the left seat following the checklist, when you get to "Propeller...Clear," don't be shy about it. Open the window and shout. Make sure everyone on the field, including the instructor in the flight school's restroom, can hear you. You're about to take those first steps. Whether this is your first hour or your 10,000th, be heard.

"Clear!"

Intro Taxi

My arm was twisted. I was forced to do it. OK, maybe not very painful arm twisting. I'm not sure I let them finish the question. But when my wife and oldest granddaughter wanted me to pull the airplane out to taxi around during the airport open house, I had to say yes.

The line folks at Moyer Aviation were happy to pull the airplane out for a drive-about. No preflight because, well, I wasn't going flying. No weather briefing either. Just get in , start up, taxi around on the grass for a bit, and call it a day.

A hot day; we left the windows open and the headsets back in the car. Loud and windy, my wife in the right seat and grandkids in the back. They loved it. My granddaughter, seven, kept saying "Make it go up, Pop!" "Sorry, I can't today." No briefing and no preflight were sufficient reasons to keep the everyone on the ground, but the best reason was not having mom and dad's permission for the kids to fly.

My wife got a call from mom while we were having our taxi. "Guess where we are?" "Where?" "In the plane." "With the kids !?!?" Mom tells dad: "Guess where they are?" "Where?" "In the plane." "With the kids !?!?"

After an explanation of the intro taxi concept, mom and dad are a bit more comfortable with things. The whole trip took maybe 15 minutes.

For the next six weeks, my granddaughter bugged her mom, her grandmother, and me: "When are we going flying with Pop?" I was the only one amused by her enthusiasm.

And my three year old grandson now will wander through the house, arms outstretched, making airplane noises. People were more amused with this, but they still look askance at me, asking, "what have you done, Pop?"

Student pilots dream of taking friends and relatives into the air after passing the checkride, and they're advise to to keep it short, to leave them wanting more.

I guess I left them wanting more.

And one happy side-effect (for me, anyway): I didn't have to talk mom and dad into letting my granddaughter fly with me. She did that, and much better than I could have. Never underestimate the persuasive powers of a seven year old.