My first attempt at flying an airplane was on November 30th, 2020, but my love of aviation goes way further back. I grew up in an Air Force family, living on bases with jets roaring overhead. I absolutely loved it. My dream was to become an A-10 pilot. Honestly, it still is.
But when I was 12, I got glasses. At that time, the military required 20/20 uncorrected vision for fighter pilots, and my eyes were nowhere close. That pretty much shut the door on the dream.
Jump ahead a couple decades to 2020. Flying was a distant memory … until a friend bought me a ticket for a Christmas lights flight around the Chickasha Festival of Lights — about 1,500 feet above the glow. I was hooked instantly. The pilot let me fly a little, and the next day I bought the learning materials and signed up for training.
Pilot training is no joke. There’s book work on weather, airspace (which I struggled with initially), aircraft systems, FAA rules, and — my favorite part — learning how to talk on the radio. You have to know the airplane inside and out and learn to control it while your brain is juggling a dozen things at once.
I first soloed on March 23rd, 2021. It was one of the most exhilarating and terrifying moments of my life — being completely alone in the airplane, everything on me.
I earned my pilot’s license on June 12th, 2021.
For those who don’t know what it takes to earn your wings as a private pilot, here’s the quick version. You start with a written exam: 60 multiple-choice questions, two hours, minimum passing score of 70%. Then comes the oral exam with a Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE), where they grill you until they are confident you know what you’re talking about. It’s technically open-book, but the more you look things up, the harder they push. (I’ll write about that experience one day, it’s wild.)
And then, brain melted, you fly.
The checkride includes demonstrating that you can properly perform:
- Preflight
- Normal, short-field, and soft-field takeoffs and landings
- Straight and level flight
- Climbs
- Descents
- Turns and steep turns (45º)
- S-turns and turns around a point
- Stalls
- Ground reference maneuvers
- Emergency procedures
And it’s basically pass/fail. You either meet the standard or you don’t. (I’ll save the intricacies of the checkride for another post!)
