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Leisure Travel ENJOYING LIFE WITH YOUR PLANE
Growing Up In The Left Seat
As a certified flight instructor and a mom, it was only a matter of time before the question came up: when am I going to teach my girls to fly?
The thought of letting my young teen daughters into the left seat of my airplane is daunting, if not downright terrifying. I mean, if they can’t handle keeping their rooms cleaned and clothing organized, how in the world could they ever handle a complex task such as flying?!
Once the panic of the initial thought subsides, however, I feel a sheepish grin spreading across my face.
After all, I was 15 years old when I took my first flying lesson, and my mom will still tell you that I wasn’t exactly the Queen of Clean when it came to my personal spaces.
So maybe the genes for cleanliness don’t share space on the same chromosome as those needed to operate heavy machinery with skill. Who knows?
A Sense Of Self
In my case, my dad offered me flying lessons, he says, because he couldn’t stand to see his kids come home from school and just hang out. In his mind, a lounging teen was simply a magnet for trouble.
I went along because, at the time, I really didn’t have any other plans. And after a few flying lessons I figured out that learning to fly was fun. I took ground school at the local Junior College at night while my mom audited the class. She was already a private pilot, but I still needed a ride home. I flew after school and on weekends. I remember letting the occasional friend ride along on a lesson, and I remember basking in their awe.
Flying helped me establish my individuality at a point in life when the typical teen is fighting hard to fit in. Flying got me comfortable in my own skin. And, Dad was right—I didn’t have time to hang out much, so I didn’t get into trouble.
Important Lessons
I earned my flight instructor rating (CFI) right after college, and I’ve taught flying ever since. From working with teens who start flying lessons I know that the training helps focus them—just as it did me. This focus matures them, and that maturity shows up in many other facets of their lives.
Flying airplanes hones judgment and demands that the pilot—regardless of his or her age—collaborate with Air Traffic Control, ground personnel, and weather forecasters. Flying requires us to be cool, calculating and analytical. It demands that we respect methodology, and adhere to rules and principles. Flying an airplane demands that we behave like adults.
Robin Petgrave, co-founder of Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum in Compton, California knows this. That’s why he created a program to attract kids to the museum to do community service work.
The work earns them “museum dollars,” which they can then trade in for flight instruction through Petgrave’s non-profit FBO at the Compton/Woodley Airport.
A protégé of that program, Kenny Roy, recently became the youngest Afro-American to solo an airplane in Canada, at 14. Focused? You bet that kid is focused—and he appreciates his lessons even more because he earned them through hard work.
The Right Teacher
I want all of that for my girls. So yes, I intend for them to learn how to fly. I’m just not sure I’m the best one to teach them.
I wish we had a program such as Chris Rinehart, of Sandpoint, Idaho, whose Scholarship Flight Training provides an entire curriculum to the Bonner County Schools for 9th through 12th graders. These kids have the opportunity to learn about aviating at the same time that they learn about literature and math, and the results are astounding. In five years Rinehart has provided the nearby University of North Dakota with a hearty contribution of future aviators and mechanics.
Other resources for kids within our communities include the Civil Air Patrol and Aviation Explorers, the co-ed, teen-led arm of the Boy Scouts of America. Both programs can offer flight training for teens. I’m considering the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Air Academy summer program, or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s summer flying clinics for teens for my girls.
It’s been my experience that my kids learn a little easier, and less begrudgingly from others and in league with their peers, than they do from me. Because no matter what I say, they will never believe that I don’t expect them to become airline pilots or astronauts when they grow up. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t even have to fly.
I simply believe that learning to pilot an airplane successfully from point A to point B mirrors a much bigger task we all share; that of growing up and learning to successfully move ourselves along life’s sometimes perplexing and bumpy airways.
Flight training gave me a blueprint for learning, and definitely taught me to cope with change. And that’s worked.
So, thanks Dad. Thanks Mom. Maybe one day, my girls will thank me, too.
—Amy Laboda
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