back to school…

…or at least that was what it felt like in one critical respect: that old familiar dread. Getting up in the morning, having breakfast and putting the uniform on knowing that in half an hour I’d be back in class sitting there feeling a deep seated, dark, black dread…

It’s not that I’m a stupid person. I always did quite well at school as it happens. My dread always came as a result of my slightly psychotic nature and a constant (if misplaced) fear of failure and humiliation. Basically I hated school, I hated being there, being asked questions, having to speak, having to be someone. All I ever really wanted to do was fade into the background and be forgotten, left to my own devices, in my own little world. To an extent my personality hasn’t changed all that much since my school days: I’m still shy, I’m still terrified of failing and am constantly worried that people will think badly of me or that I’m about to make myself look like an idiot. Of course I am a fair bit older now, more mature and have spent several years learning how to cope and survive in the real world – nowadays my shyness is hidden under a veneer of enthusiasm and implied self-confidence. Sometimes the confidence is even real and I can live life genuinely believing that I am someone and can be someone…

When it comes to flying I have a love/hate relationship with the learning process. On the one hand I love to learn, I always have. On the other hand I hate to feel like an idiot, and despise making myself feel like I’ve made someone think I’m stupid. Aerobatics is great – I came into it completely green, with no knowledge, no skill and no pre-conceptions. I knew I knew nothing and was utterly content to be guided and taught with no fear of sounding stupid, because after all you can’t be ignorant about something you’re truly ignorant of.

I have a pilot’s license. I went through the pain of learning to fly, of being taught, of sitting the exams and having someone watch me and question me and work out whether or not I knew what I was doing or if I’m actually an idiot. I’ve been through all that and have no desire to go through it all again just now thank you, just like I have no desire to go back to school to sit at the back of the class praying that the teacher won’t ask me any questions. Having to ‘re-learn’ everything in the Pitts was not something I wanted at all, to such an extent that I’d been putting off doing any real circuit work and actually learning to fly and land the aeroplane as much as I possibly could. It was daft really, my own bizarre mis-conception that because I could fly a ‘conventional’ aeroplane, I should be able to fly a Pitts Special without too much effort…

A Pitts Special is an incredible aeroplane, and at no point is she to be underestimated. Treat her right and she’ll let you play with her, treat her badly or arrogantly and you’ll soon learn your place. SKNT and I have been flying together for a while now, and I’ve been quite happy to just play with her in the upper air, letting my mentor and teacher take control to get us back down, but of course it was essential that sooner or later I’d be able to take her out by myself, and as such I’d have to learn to actually fly and land her…

Landing is an interesting matter. It’s quite well known that Pitts Specials can be a bit of a handful and a challenge to learn to land, and it’s certainly been my experience that good landings are more of an art-form rather than a science. Learning to land was the part I’d really not been looking forward to – it should be easy, it shouldn’t be hard to learn, I should be able to pick it up really quickly…every bounce, every go-around, every fluffed approach were all things I knew I’d hate myself for because of course I would be making myself look like a useless idiot, and of course Paul was going to judge me for that wasn’t he…

Paul is a great instructor, ok yes, he has his faults as we all do, and at times I find myself feeing frustrated and even aggravated with him (bear in mind we’ve spent a fair amount of time in each other’s company now, and I’m not the most patient of people), but at the end of the day if anyone asked me what I thought of him as an instructor, I’d tell them I think he has a way with being everything he needs to be exactly when he needs to be in order to help someone progress. That, to me, is the essence of a good instructor and teacher…And so it was, after I’d finally swallowed my pride and accepted that my only option was to accept that I was going to be useless, and that it didn’t matter, I started flying circuits with Paul.

It has come to mind recently that an aeroplane isn’t simply a tool or a machine, but that it has a soul. SKNT certainly does, and a character to match. Simply controlling an aeroplane isn’t really flying. Confidence is needed alongside huge amounts of respect and humility, but once you get the balance right (or more to the point, once I had started getting the balance right), and you accept and listen to the guidance you are given, everything will start to settle into the right places. And so it is, that after a few hours of flying round and round and round and round in circles, occasionally landing but more often bouncing, whacking the power on and going around (or just going around after a truly terrible attempt at a side-slipped approach), of swearing to myself, hearing Paul saying the same things over and over again until they finally went in, of forgetting where to turn, of fidgeting in my harness, of wishing my seat was more comfortable or that I was on the beach in the Bahamas instead, of wondering when it would all end, of wishing I was a better pilot, of more swearing at myself, and of finally realising that I am a better pilot, of flying perfect and near-perfect approaches, of landing and stopping and backtracking and flying again, of smiling and realising that every bit of hardship and pain is worth it, of sitting and thinking that I’m madly in love with this type of flying and this type of aeroplane, of realising and knowing that I can do this, of still stuffing it up and swearing at myself occasionally, of going out and flying and relaxing and breathing and focussing: I have finally learned to land.

And so it went, that last Thursday Paul got out of SKNT and sent me off for the first time without him. After a shaky start and one of the most incredible pieces of decision making I’ve ever witnessed from anyone (I made a fairly major mistake and landed horribly shaken and prepared to walk away), I flew a few circuits and landed a few times, and left the airfield as a Pitts pilot, no longer just a student any more.

If it isn’t hard, it’s probably not worth doing!