AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2020 - 86

P&E

PROFICIENCY

MEMENTOS FROM THE FATEFUL FLIGHT: Pete's artistic rendering, and

photographic evidence of the offending comic book.

Flight instructors should provide realistic
distractions, and it hit me that Stacey had
assumed my job and was working like a pro.
Her presence gave him the added pressure that
made his balancing act particularly difficult.
own children had improved my piloting and decision-making skills. We can
try to eliminate distractions, but just
try warning a 6-year-old of your sterile cockpit rule and see how that works
out. On one flight into Washington, D.C.,
just as I heard that dreaded phrase from
Potomac Approach, "We have a rerouting for you. Are you ready to copy?"
Jack and Pete started roughhousing in
the back and I noted a plastic Batman
figure had become lodged in my trim
wheel. My sons have certainly kept me
on my toes by providing ample opportunities to decide whether their needs and
wants are something I can accommodate
or those I need to tune out.
When I think of instructors who routinely combine training and adventures,
the first that comes to mind is my friend
and award-winning flight instructor
Byron Hamby. Byron doesn't approach
flight instruction as a job as much as an
86 | AOPA PILOT February 2020

opportunity for adventure. He is always
ready to help a pilot pick up a newly purchased airplane and provide excellent
instruction while flying it home.
On one such trip, he helped his friend
Tim pick up a Cessna 172 in Seattle and
fly it back to New Jersey. Tim's 12-yearold daughter, Kiki, came along, snapped
photos, assembled them with music into
a slide show, and presented it to Byron
after the trip. To date, Byron keeps it as
one of his prized possessions. For Tim,
Kiki, and Byron, this type of experience is
a win-win-win.
On the way back from the football
game, I had to acknowledge that I couldn't
handle both searching for the airplane
and helping my son. If I did have those
extra arms, it turns out that none was
long enough to reach the back seats of
a Saratoga. I said aloud, "I am unable to
assist you right now, Pete. I will help when
I can." My mission had been to complete

a safe flight and return the airplane to
our friend in the immaculate condition in
which it was delivered to us. In the end, I
achieved exactly one of those goals, but it
was the more important of the two. The
owner took it well and even pitched in on
the clean-up. Pete wrote a school report
on our trip, complete with detailed illustrations, that I prize and still makes me
laugh (see above).
If you fly long enough, you will
have your own list of surprises to handle. Mine includes hitting a deer while
landing at my home airport, an engine
failure in the pattern, and dealing with
a sick child on the way back from a football game. Flying with my family has not
only provided a treasure trove of experiences we'll all remember for a lifetime,
but combining some of those trips with
flight training has made me into a better pilot than I would be otherwise. Do
you have an upcoming adventure that
you'd like to turn into a valuable lesson?
Try asking a flight instructor along-I'm
sure she'd love to go!
AOPA
CATHERINE CAVAGNARO is an aerobatics

instructor (aceaerobaticschool.com) and
professor of mathematics at Sewanee:
The University of the South.
http://www.aceaerobaticschool.com
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2020

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