Pacific on the Right - Two Pilots, One Airplane, a Lifetime of Memories

Chapter 3

A Model Student

Autumn 1999:

Scottsdale, Arizona, United States

Fact: What is referred to as a $100 hamburger costs
a lot more than $100.

Three months had passed since Miguel took his last lesson. I’d almost forgotten about him and assumed he would never be back. I’d long since written him off as just another rich guy who gave up on the idea of flying when he realized the effort and the expense involved. When he reappeared, he was on the verge of becoming a distant memory, and I was genuinely surprised to see him. We discussed his unusual schedule and how he could effectively train. The plan we came up with was that from then on, we would fly every day he was in town, which was usually 5 or 6 days per month. We also discussed the possibility of him buying his own plane. I found it hard to imagine the guy who saved $50 on an intro flight spending almost $200,000 to buy an airplane barely a year later.

Over the course of the following months, Miguel took several lessons with me each month. Preferring the hands-on, stick and rudder part of flying, my other students who were mostly male, middle aged, and highly successful didn’t want to apply themselves to the book learning aspects of flight training. They were in love with the idea of flying, but had little patience with the actual nuts-and-bolts of learning how to fly. Many of them were frustrating to teach because they would get so far behind in their studies that they would reach a point where they couldn’t progress in flight training until they caught up with the book work. Once again, Miguel was the exception; he kept me on my toes and made it necessary for me to hit the books on occasion. Unusually studious, he took notes; asked lots of good questions; and was conscientious in the way he fulfilled his duties as a student. Bottom line, he was a model student even though his scheduling was unconventional. The best approach to training is to fly two to three times per week. Because Miguel was splitting his time between Arizona and Chile, he would disappear for a month or two and, when he returned, he would fly almost every day for two or three weeks. Even though, at that point, he was looking into buying his own plane, I was still skeptical that he would complete the requirements for a private pilot’s license. This was based on him taking the intro flight plus a couple lessons, and then disappearing for several months. However, he proved me wrong. He continued the pattern faithfully for nine months and on October 26, 2000, took his last instructional flight with me having completed all of his training requirements. He went on to pass an aeronautical knowledge test and then made the grade on oral and flight tests administered by a designated examiner, becoming a Private Pilot. Designated examiners are pilots the Federal Aviation Administration authorizes to conduct check rides.

I was always struck by the unconventional way Miguel tackled training. Observing his attitude toward learning to fly was a life changer for me. After we became friends, I realized he approached his whole life with the same fervor and without any sense of limitations. Because of his example, I felt empowered to start my own businesses during the years that followed our trip.

Each student brings their own style, priorities, and quirks to the learning process. Miguel was no different, and provided for some fun times for both of us. Most people assume that learning to fly means learning how to fly using all of those instruments in the cockpit. Surprisingly, that doesn’t happen until a student moves on to more advanced training. Instead, initial training focuses on navigating the plane using landmarks such as lakes and railroad tracks which are referred to as outside references. Outside references provide useful navigation aids and make up an authentic, real-time map pilots can use when flying from place to place. For simply flying the aircraft, students can learn to climb, descend, turn, as well as fly straight and level all by looking at the horizon.

In the cockpit, all of those instruments in front of students are just begging to be looked at and tend to be a major distraction for student pilots. Some students focus on the instrument panel and fail to pay attention to what is happening outside the airplane. When I was flight instructing, I cured this bad habit by carrying a pack of Post-it notes in my flight bag and using them to cover-up most or all of the gauges if I noticed a student getting distracted by them. Forcing students to fly without looking at the gauges served as a powerful demonstration that they really could fly the airplane strictly by looking out the window.

Miguel was one of those student pilots. During a number of our early flights, I was forced to cover just about everything in the cockpit. The Post-its happened to be blue, and Miguel joked about them whenever I pulled them out. “Feeling blue?” “I guess I’m only seeing blue today,” or “I’m hoping you forgot your Post-it notes today, Señor.”

In addition to instilling confidence in my students’ ability to fly without instruments, I planted the seeds for a sense of adventure in relation to their new-found flying skills. When students took a series of lessons with me, I always encouraged them to eventually take advantage of being able to fly by using their airplane to explore, travel, and expand their horizons. All too many private pilots end up flying to the same airport every weekend and having breakfast or lunch at the airport restaurant before returning home. Because of the total cost of the airplane, fuel and of course the meal itself, the phenomenon is nicknamed “the $100 hamburger.” Miguel took my advice to heart. At some point, he decided that when he took delivery of his airplane, we would fly it the 818 mile trip back to Scottsdale, Arizona from the Cessna factory in Independence, Kansas rather than have the factory deliver it. The flight was a big deal to him. He was doubling down on his commitment to learning to fly by buying his own brand new plane. The flight to personally transport it would be his longest cross country flight to date. In fact, at that point in time, it would be the longest I had ever made as well.

Getting to the factory involved flying on the airlines to Tulsa, and then renting a car to drive to Independence. The flight on the airline involved a first for me- I got to ride in first class! I had never done that before, although as a pilot I was more excited by the prospect of getting to fly a brand new airplane after we arrived at the Cessna factory. The following day, we did just that. Miguel and I departed Independence Airport in his new plane with what is referred to as a factory pilot; i.e., a pilot who works for the manufacturer. During the hour we spent in the air, she demonstrated the aircraft’s abilities and that its systems were working as designed. Known as an acceptance flight, it was much like a test drive in a new car in that it provided assurance that everything was in good order before the papers were signed and money changed hands. I remember that the pilot assigned to us had zero personality and robotically went through the motions of showing us the aircraft and demonstrating the various radios, navigation systems, and autopilot. Over dinner that night, in his very gentlemanly way, Miguel remarked that the job would be better suited to someone with a little more attention to customer service, especially in light of the amount of money spent and what should have been the enjoyment of a first flight in one’s brand new aircraft. As a complimentary side note, the salesperson assigned to Miguel later approached me privately and campaigned very heavily for me to apply for that job; basically guaranteeing it was mine if I wanted it.
After taking delivery of the plane, we planned our flight back to Scottsdale, scheduling two stops along the way for food and fuel: Dalhart, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our first stop was the more interesting. The town of Dalhart, Texas, is about halfway between Independence, Kansas, and Scottsdale, Arizona. It was lunchtime when we arrived, so at first the plan was to fuel the plane, fill our stomachs, and fly on. There was a restaurant on the field, but, based on my advice about using the airplane to explore new places, Miguel decided we should see the sights in town. The county courthouse located in Dalhart houses a bust of James R. Fox, Jr. which the Peoples Republic of China presented to the town in his memory. He and his Chinese copilots died during World War II, when their cargo plane crashed while flying supplies from India to China in support of the Chinese war effort. The treacherous route they flew over the Himalayan Mountains is known as “The Hump.”

The gentleman who ran the FBO in Dalhart was exactly what I expected to find in a small Texas town. He was big, tall, wore a cowboy hat, and spoke with an attitude that made it clear that he did not suffer fools gladly, or in any other way for that matter. When Miguel asked him about getting a ride into town, in a thick, slow, but impatient twang, he gestured across the concrete at the airport restaurant. “We’ve got a restaurant right here,” he drawled. Miguel replied respectfully that he was interested in seeing the town and eating where the locals ate. “The locals eat here,” he insisted in a tone that made it quite clear we would be eating at the airport or flying home hungry. We ate at the airport.

Our second stop in Albuquerque was...