So You Want To Be A Pilot?

By Capt. Ankur Thakur

So you want to learn to fly. You are about to join a very select fraternity of those privileged individuals who have, in the words of the poet J.G. Magee, “slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wing”. 

Learning to fly is easy. The skill to handle an airplane in the air and during landing and take-off is acquired with a few hundred hours of patient application. Learning to be a proficient, professional and safe pilot is not so simple. It is a skill acquired through experience, judgment, persistent practice and ongoing training, it is, in fact, a challenge that never ends.

Professional pilots are, and always will be, highly sought, highly paid individual specialists because they are master craftsmen in their trade. So, what are the special skills that the professional pilot has?

Weather sense, for one thing: a knowledge of line squalls and thunderstorms and icing conditions, of stable and unstable air masses, of cold fronts, dew point and all the odds and ends that go to make up the science of meteorology.

They are expert navigators and understand how to plot headings and bearings. They have in depth knowledge of wind and drift problems. They are thoroughly conversant with such things as azimuth, isogonic lines and great circle tracks. They calculate altitude and airspeed corrections and understand the importance of determining density altitude before departing on a flight in hot weather conditions. They are proficient in the use of radio navigation aids, like ADF, Omni, DME, Loran and GPS.

Professional pilots know their airplane and their engines. The lives of their passengers depend on the airworthiness of their equipment as much as on their own skills and knowledge – so they conscientiously superintend the service and maintenance of their airplanes. They understand fuel-air ratio and know how to get the last ounce of power and the most miles out of a given volume of fuel. They are familiar with all the invisible forces and couples that act on an airplane in flight and they know when the airplane has been subjected to any abnormal stresses that may lead to a structural strain.

In other words, professional pilots are individuals with whom one can fly with utmost confidence, based on the assurance that they not only rate officially as Grade A pilots and navigators but also as thorough technicians who are completely versed in every last-minute detail of their profession both on the ground and in the air.

“But,” you may point out, “I have no ambition to become an airline captain. I am only interested in learning in learning to fly as a private pilot. Is it necessary that I should learn all this technical stuff as well?”

Of course, it is necessary. Is your own life not every bit as precious to you as are the lives of its passengers to an airline company?

An airplane moves in a medium known as the atmosphere. This layer of air surrounding the earth for a depth of thousands of feet is a turbulent region of shifting winds, cross currents, storms, gusts and squalls. Invisible giants, the polar and equatorial masses forever in conflict, make this atmosphere of ours a perpetual proving ground for the science of air navigation by frequent blanketing of entire areas with dense drop-curtains of cloud, fog, rain or snow.

An airplane moves in three-dimensional space which involves threefold problem in its control. It lacks buoyancy, is heavier than air and, hence, is dependent on the power from its engine to sustain it in flight. A forced landing, while not necessarily a hazardous undertaking, is nevertheless an undesirable course of action. Reliability is therefore a matter of vastly greater importance in the air than on land or sea. And reliability refers not only to the mechanical perfection of the airplane and its engine but also to the knowledge, judgment, and all-round proficiency that rides in the cockpit.

Time was when an older generation learned to fly by the seat of its pants. But time marches on and aviation has since swept ahead with giant strides. Many a private owner today will casually climb aboard his airplane to start off on a flight that to the pioneers of aviation would have seemed an epic undertaking. The pilot of today is equipped with information and knowledge that many decades of trial and error, of toil and effort and human sacrifice have placed at our disposal.

The pioneers in aviation had to get their experience the hard way and bore the scars of many a near thing. Today the ground school has become and international institution where those, who want to fly the scientifically sure way. May learn things they should know the only sound and thorough way!

About the Author:

Capt. Ankur Thakur is working with the National Flag carrier of India, Air India. He works in the capacity of First Officer for the Boeing fleet. His total work experience in Aviation is more than six Years.