08/08 - Why Do You Want To Fly?

08/08 - Why Do You Want To Fly?

By Steve Krog

I ask that question of virtually every prospective student who comes to me for flight training. Responses are many and varied: “My father is a pilot.” My uncle was a pilot.” “A friend took me up flying and got me interested.” “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.” The reasons go on and on.

Nearly every student then asks me why I fly and how I became so ‘bitten” by the aviation bug. My canned response is usually, “Because I love it and always have since I was old enough to know what an airplane was.” But the true answer to this question deserves more thought.

Why do I want to fly? I can tell you why I do love it so! At a very early age, perhaps three or four years old, I watched the North Central Airlines DC-3 pass twice daily over the farm I grew up on in southwestern Minnesota. I had never yet seen the inside of any airplane but I knew then it was something I wanted to experience. About this same time a farm bordering ours established a small, privately owned, publicly used airport. If I walked about one-quarter mile north and stood on a small knoll, I could see airplanes taking off and landing at this airport and I wandered away from the yard frequently, just to watch the airplanes.

It was about this time and age when I learned how to ride a bicycle. It was too big for me to get on by myself without the help of a step or stump. When my mother wasn’t looking, I’d use the front door step to get on my bike and pedal the three-quarter mile distance to this little airport. During the week it was unattended and very little activity took place there. However, there were four open front “T” hangars that housed two Aeronca Champs and two Piper J3 Cubs. I think it was here that I fell in love with the Cub.

I could spend hours sitting in any of these airplanes and pretend I was flying. One hot summer days the Champs were too hot to sit in with their doors closed. The Cubs suited me much better with the open door. One minute I was a fighter pilot shooting down enemy airplanes and the next I was Sky King rushing to the aid of a neighbor in distress. Many hours were “logged” in the Cubs over several summers.

As most little airports of that era, this one succumbed to the lack of use and within a few short years closed and returned to productive farmland.

At about the age of seven or eight, my father introduced me to a friend who had been a pilot in World War II. It was friendship at first sight. I was the kid who had a thousand questions and he always took the time to answer each and every one of them. Eventually, he invited me to take a flight with him and I remember it vividly, as if it took place just yesterday.

We preflighted the airplane, then hopped in and fastened our seatbelts. When the engine started it all seemed like a dream. Finally, we were sitting at the end of the runway ready to take off. “Take hold of the yoke and follow me through. We’ll do the take off together,” he said to me. Advancing the throttle, we began rolling down the runway. I was experiencing sounds that I’d never heard before, the thump of the tires as they rolled over the cracks in the runway, the engine accelerating, the increasing noise of the wind, and then, with slight back pressure on the yoke, we were airborne!

If you’ve never yet flown in a small airplane, you cannot imagine the feel and exhilaration as the airplane becomes airborne. The ground drops away and you realize that you are actually flying! I will never forget the sensation of that very first take off in a small airplane. Right then and there, at that very moment, I was determined to fly someday.

Money was tight in those days, and I was taught to save every penny so that one day I could go to college. Flying took a back seat to everything else…but the passion for flying still burned in my heart.

Several years later I did venture off to college but the yearning to fly still burned brightly. Then the U.S. Army entered the picture. They were hungry for pilots (this was during the Viet Nam era) so I took the aptitude test and I was soon accepted into the ROTC primary flight-training program. All I had to do in exchange was guarantee that I would remain on active duty for four years with a possible extension of two additional years.

My first lesson was uneventful. However, on lesson number two, my instructor scared the life out of me. Without explanation or demonstration he wanted me to do a stall. I proceeded in doing so but soon found myself in a spin to the left. As my life passed before my eyes, all he did was sit there and yell at me to RECOVER! After the fourth turn he took the controls and righted the airplane. Too shook to fly any more, we landed. I remember thinking, “Perhaps flying isn’t for me. Maybe I should take up canoeing.”

It was at this point that I said to myself, “If I ever do learn how to fly and I do become an instructor, I’ll never scare a student like I was scared!” I’ve kept that promise to this day.

Several days later I finally had the courage to go back but insisted on a different instructor. The remainder of my flight training was uneventful but challenging, and after achieving 36.4 hours of flight time, I was pronounced ready for my checkride. (This was a part 141-flight school, which required only 35 hours for the Private Pilot.)

I pursued the additional ratings on my own thanks to a very understanding fixed-base operator who was willing to work with me in exchange for instructing for him after earning my Certificated Flight Instructor (CFI) rating.

To date I’ve accumulated about 7,000 hours of flight time, most of which has been flight instruction. Each flight with a student is both stimulating as well as a challenge and I never seem to tire from it. I’ve often been asked by others based at our airport how I can stand sitting in the front seat of a Cub teaching take-offs and landings for six or seven hours each day. My answer is simple: each take-off provides me with the appreciation for and the love of flight, no matter if it is the first or the 50th take-off of the day. I still find the lift off exciting, just as I did when I was given to opportunity to fly the first time.

I developed a real passion for flight early in my life and have a burning desire to share it with others. Before conducting the first flight with each new student, we sit down and talk about why they want to learn to fly. I then explain that as a pleasure or hobby flyer, flying is challenging as well as a lot of fun. However, it is a hobby that requires the utmost in safety practices. Then, we hop in the Cub and put each of those thoughts into practice!

There are times when flight is especially memorable. Taking off at sunrise and looking back over your shoulder to see the tire impressions and prop blast left on a turf runway covered in heavy dew is a sight only true pilots can appreciate. Flying around and over the puffy white cumulus clouds that fill the summer sky is breathtaking. And making the last flight of the day in the smooth, warm summer air just as the sun is setting gives one reason to believe.

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