A Solo at LVJ
My wife, our dog Rocky, and I often observe a little ritual on the weekends. We pile into my truck, drive down to McDonald’s and buy breakfast (which for Rocky is usually “a side order of bacon), and then head out to Pearland Regional Airport where we eat and drink it. If I’ve remembered to bring along my handheld aviation transceiver, we also listen to the radio calls from the traffic pattern as we watch airplanes takeoff, fly the pattern, and land.
So, on this Sunday morning not long ago, we watched a Grumman Cheetah from a nearby flight school enter the pattern for runway 32. We had positioned ourselves on a concrete slab next to the taxiway at the runway’s approach end, so we had a good view of the entire runway and most of the pattern. The Cheetah glided down, accompanied by standard position calls made by its student-pilot with a Middle-eastern accent, and touched down a little before the halfway point on the runway before turning back onto the taxiway. The airplane taxied back to us, turned left into the hold short for taxiway Delta where it stopped as its canopy slid back and a fairly young, dark-haired man stepped out from under it onto the wing. He then stepped onto the ground, out of the airplane.
“Looks like a first solo,” I said, and my wife agreed as the dark-haired American-looking instructor ambled off the taxiway to sit quietly in the grass behind it. Meanwhile, the airplane’s canopy re-closed and the airplane held at the hold short. There was nobody on final or even on base, though there were two other airplanes in the pattern. The Cheetah didn’t move.
“What’s he waiting for?” I mumbled. He had plenty of time before the traffic now on downwind turned toward him, making sure he’d have to wait even longer to get off. I looked back at the instructor to see how he was reacting. He wasn’t looking at his student at all.
Sure enough, the first airplane turned onto base, followed another minute later by the second. The Grumman held quietly until they both had passed, then we heard the student incorrectly announce his “N number” though he correctly stated he was taking 32 for departure. The instructor watched his student accelerate down the runway and take off but went back to his own cusps as soon as the student broke ground.
My wife and I watched the student fly his pattern and listened to his radio calls while the instructor continued to be more interested in whatever he was doing. It wasn’t until the student was on short final the instructor looked up just in time to watch him touch down and then ram the throttle home for his touch and go.
The airplane lifted off, and the instructor’s head went in the other direction.
Connie commented she wouldn’t want to fly with that instructor. First, she couldn’t understand why he didn’t have a handheld radio to allow him to talk to the student if anything went wrong. While I agreed that such a tactic was wise, I defended the instructor’s choice by pointing out it wasn’t required and some instructors would consider such a thing as “not letting the student go”. What I couldn’t defend was the instructor’s constant indifference to his student. Why wasn’t he watching the student’s pattern, not only to debrief it later but to watch for how the student was managing it in the presence of other traffic? Why wasn’t he watching the student’s base leg and final approaches and critiquing those in relationship to the student’s landing that were a bit long on each pass?
The student completed two more touch and go’s while the instructor’s head rarely came up.
On the fourth pass, the student taxied the Cheetah off the runway and back onto the taxiway. The instructor didn’t move until the airplane taxied to the hold-short, and then he entered. Moments later, the airplane engine revved up and the airplane surged forward, turning hard to align with the runway.
“The instructor’s got it now,“ I said, as his voice tumbled across the radio announcing they were departing three-two. The airplane jumped off the ground and then wobbled down the runway, gaining speed, at an altitude of about three feet. It roared straight at the pine trees near the runway’s end, pulling up hard to miss them, and then turning to the west, back toward the airport from which it had come.
Instead of making her go “goo-goo” at the instructor pilot, the maneuver turned my wife off. If she had been the student, she said, she would have felt both angry and shamed by his takeover and takeoff. What was supposed to have been her moment of glory would have been overshadowed by a risk-laden, testosterone-driven takeoff. She had a point. If I had been the instructor, I would have gotten back in the airplane and told the student to “take me home”, assisting him or her only as necessary. But in that Cheetah that day, the student did not get to wallow in such revelry.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that instructor had just set that student up for an accident. How did the instructor know the student, on his next flight, wouldn’t emulate the trick he had just demonstrated, probably with catastrophic results? Certainly, the maneuver said more about the instructor’s machismo than it did about his professionalism. Was this some guy who was instructing only to build time to make his way into the cockpit of heavy iron? An ex-military pilot who couldn’t make the transition into civilian life and aviation and would one day plaster himself on the side of a hill by pushing his airplane too hard? While I have only questions, I do know one thing is for sure. If I go to that flight school to fly one of their Cheetahs, he’s one guy I won’t fly with.
So, on this Sunday morning not long ago, we watched a Grumman Cheetah from a nearby flight school enter the pattern for runway 32. We had positioned ourselves on a concrete slab next to the taxiway at the runway’s approach end, so we had a good view of the entire runway and most of the pattern. The Cheetah glided down, accompanied by standard position calls made by its student-pilot with a Middle-eastern accent, and touched down a little before the halfway point on the runway before turning back onto the taxiway. The airplane taxied back to us, turned left into the hold short for taxiway Delta where it stopped as its canopy slid back and a fairly young, dark-haired man stepped out from under it onto the wing. He then stepped onto the ground, out of the airplane.
“Looks like a first solo,” I said, and my wife agreed as the dark-haired American-looking instructor ambled off the taxiway to sit quietly in the grass behind it. Meanwhile, the airplane’s canopy re-closed and the airplane held at the hold short. There was nobody on final or even on base, though there were two other airplanes in the pattern. The Cheetah didn’t move.
“What’s he waiting for?” I mumbled. He had plenty of time before the traffic now on downwind turned toward him, making sure he’d have to wait even longer to get off. I looked back at the instructor to see how he was reacting. He wasn’t looking at his student at all.
Sure enough, the first airplane turned onto base, followed another minute later by the second. The Grumman held quietly until they both had passed, then we heard the student incorrectly announce his “N number” though he correctly stated he was taking 32 for departure. The instructor watched his student accelerate down the runway and take off but went back to his own cusps as soon as the student broke ground.
My wife and I watched the student fly his pattern and listened to his radio calls while the instructor continued to be more interested in whatever he was doing. It wasn’t until the student was on short final the instructor looked up just in time to watch him touch down and then ram the throttle home for his touch and go.
The airplane lifted off, and the instructor’s head went in the other direction.
Connie commented she wouldn’t want to fly with that instructor. First, she couldn’t understand why he didn’t have a handheld radio to allow him to talk to the student if anything went wrong. While I agreed that such a tactic was wise, I defended the instructor’s choice by pointing out it wasn’t required and some instructors would consider such a thing as “not letting the student go”. What I couldn’t defend was the instructor’s constant indifference to his student. Why wasn’t he watching the student’s pattern, not only to debrief it later but to watch for how the student was managing it in the presence of other traffic? Why wasn’t he watching the student’s base leg and final approaches and critiquing those in relationship to the student’s landing that were a bit long on each pass?
The student completed two more touch and go’s while the instructor’s head rarely came up.
On the fourth pass, the student taxied the Cheetah off the runway and back onto the taxiway. The instructor didn’t move until the airplane taxied to the hold-short, and then he entered. Moments later, the airplane engine revved up and the airplane surged forward, turning hard to align with the runway.
“The instructor’s got it now,“ I said, as his voice tumbled across the radio announcing they were departing three-two. The airplane jumped off the ground and then wobbled down the runway, gaining speed, at an altitude of about three feet. It roared straight at the pine trees near the runway’s end, pulling up hard to miss them, and then turning to the west, back toward the airport from which it had come.
Instead of making her go “goo-goo” at the instructor pilot, the maneuver turned my wife off. If she had been the student, she said, she would have felt both angry and shamed by his takeover and takeoff. What was supposed to have been her moment of glory would have been overshadowed by a risk-laden, testosterone-driven takeoff. She had a point. If I had been the instructor, I would have gotten back in the airplane and told the student to “take me home”, assisting him or her only as necessary. But in that Cheetah that day, the student did not get to wallow in such revelry.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that instructor had just set that student up for an accident. How did the instructor know the student, on his next flight, wouldn’t emulate the trick he had just demonstrated, probably with catastrophic results? Certainly, the maneuver said more about the instructor’s machismo than it did about his professionalism. Was this some guy who was instructing only to build time to make his way into the cockpit of heavy iron? An ex-military pilot who couldn’t make the transition into civilian life and aviation and would one day plaster himself on the side of a hill by pushing his airplane too hard? While I have only questions, I do know one thing is for sure. If I go to that flight school to fly one of their Cheetahs, he’s one guy I won’t fly with.
posted by Andy Foster at 6:06 PM
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