Time for You to Fly

One of the biggest moments of your life will occur on a relatively lonely airstrip with just one other person with you. And that will be the first time you actually take controls of an airplane and take it out on your first flight. This moment is what makes the difference between every other kind of training and the path you have chosen to get your pilot’s license and become a pilot. While lots of schools have hands on training, taking an airplane into the sky is unlike any other classroom experience there is.

But “flight school” would be pretty much useless if it didn’t include actual air time where you are the one doing the flying. After all, once you pass the pilot’s test, you will become certified by the FAA which means that you are qualified to fly an airplane and that you can take that plane up, handle different situations during the flight and return it to ground safely.

When you get notification from your instructor when the day will be that your first training flight will be, you will probably be a bit nervous. It will be a nervousness that will be mixed with excitement. No doubt during the course of your training up until then you will have seen pictures of a cockpit and even sat in the aircraft learning the controls and gauges so you can tie your “book learning” to the live experience of flying an airplane.

Pay lots of attention during the classroom part of your training. This isn’t like studying English literature or American history. Every scrap of knowledge you get in the classroom will have direct and important application when that moment comes that you taxi that airplane out onto the runway to take it into the air. So learn and ask questions and leave no stone unturned in your eager quest to conquer every detail of this complicated and important field of learning.

The thing to remember as you strap into the pilots seat of that flight schools airplane for your first flight is your instructor will be there every step of the way and he or she won’t let anything go wrong. The passenger seat of the cockpit of a training craft has parallel controls so if your instructor senses you need help, he can take over and demonstrate the technique for you in actual flight practice. There is no better learning situation than this.

You will go through every aspect of the flight and there will be checklists of things to be mindful of from the moment you sit down at the controls to the end of the flight when you have landed the craft and step out of the plane with one flight successfully under your belt. Again, you will have covered all of this in class but you might feel overwhelmed when you are actually in the process of taking a flight out because you will not only have to remember dozens of things to check off, you are dealing with the sensations of flying an airplane.

But don’t worry because your instructor knows that especially on this first flight, you will not be an expert at every aspect of the flight. He will help you start the engine, taxi it onto the runway, interact with the tower and take off. During the flight, your instructor will be having as much fun as you watching you discover the fun of flying and banking the plane, gaining altitude, changing directions and dealing with shifts in the atmosphere around you. And when the time is right to land the plane, the most important part of the flight, your instructor will be very involved and maybe handle this first one for you so you can get on the ground safely with a good learning experience behind you.

Pay attention, ask lots of questions and get comfortable with what is going on. If you feel some nervous jitters in your stomach, that’s normal. Just breathe through them and remember your training. In the flights ahead, you will take over more and more of the controls until finally you are flying the airplane solo. But you will never forget that first time you took that airplane into the air and even though you were a student, you were taking that first important step toward becoming a pilot.

The Fastest Way to Get Off the Ground

If you were to interview many of the people who set off on that quest to get their pilot's license about their motivations, you would get answers all over the map. And for many the goals are quite ambitious and they might include starting their own private charter company, becoming a private pilot for a business like a church or an oil company or working up the system all the way to the top until they are able to fly the jumbo jets on exotic international flights.

But for many of us, we just want to be able to fly for the sheer fun and joy of getting up there with the birds and enjoying the freedom of being airborne. This is just as respectable a goal as any of the others. And if you know your ambitions before you go into flight school, you can customize what you need and allow the school to tailor your program to your dreams so you get just the right amount of training and no less but also no more.

The cool thing is that the FAA recognizes that many want to learn to fly because it’s a wonderful hobby and to just have the fun of going up in an airplane under their own control from time to time. There is nothing wrong with knowing that is your level of interest and it's healthy for the airline industry when people express their fascination with flying by just using a pilot's license for the enjoyment of the sensation of flying an airplane to get above the landscape and have a fun afternoon doing so.

So to respond to the interest in a level of licensing that fits your goals, the FAA introduced a "lighter" version of the pilot's license called the sports license that gives you the training and the certification to say you do know how to fly but it is a license that is custom made for the recreational pilot like yourself. This is a great response to the need for a type of pilot's license that is not so concentrated on a career in aviation or on the heavier level of responsibility and learning that a private pilot's license brings with it.

The sports pilot's license has some restrictions but it allows you to enjoy flying lighter aircraft for short flights under controlled circumstances. This fits the "joy ride" desire that is exactly what attracted you to the hobby of flying in the first place. The category of aircraft you are certified to fly are called Light Sports Aircraft (LSA) and that category includes two passenger airplanes, gliders and even aircraft that are lighter than air like hot air balloons. So when you go to a balloon festival, most of the pilots of those balloons have sports pilot's licenses meaning they are qualified to fly at this level of aviation.

The age restrictions for a sports license are pretty much the same as a private pilot's license but the medical requirements are not as strict and in most cases if you are medically qualified to have a driver's license to drive to the airstrip for the lessons, you are qualified to earn a sports pilot's license. You still have to go through flight training but the number of flight time hours are not as stressful and the written test is customized to the less demanding level of interest you have in flying.

The great thing is that you can go ahead and get a sports pilot's license and begin enjoying flying on an occasional basis and stay at that level as long as you want. But if at some point down the road, you want to move on to a private pilot's license, all of your work on the sports license applies so you just have to "upgrade" your training to the more advanced certification.

But with the sports license you can take a friend up for a flight, tour the local landscape or enjoy a quick flight to a neighboring town to visit friends or attend a sporting event. It is the fastest way to get up in the air but you are still a certified pilot so the FAA has recognized that you know what you are doing in the pilot's seat of an airplane.