Learning to fly
The
path to a pilot’s license is one taken by people of all ages. The most direct
method is simply to find a flight school and flight instructor and begin
lessons. There are two national pilot organizations that have programs designed
to assist those who have an interest in learning to fly: the Airplane Owners
and Pilots Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association.
AOPA
sponsors a program called Project Pilot, which matches current pilots with
those who are interested in learning about flying. The program is free to those
who show interest, and the mentors who provide their time often are not flight
instructors. The program gives an opportunity to an interested student to be
introduced to someone who will share the experiences of flying. The program can
be accessed on the internet by going to www.aopa.org and then following the
links at training and safety to Project Pilot.
The
EAA sponsors a program for young people interested in aviation. The EAA Young
Eagles program was launched in 1992 to give interested young people, ages 8-17,
an opportunity to go flying in a general aviation
airplane. These flights are offered free of charge and are made possible
through the generosity of EAA member volunteers. EAA chapter 491 for Santa Ynez
is active in the Young Eagles program and sponsors a free flight program in
May. Additional information can be obtained on the Internet at
www.youngeagles.org.
The
Federal Aviation Administration specifies that to earn a private pilot
certificate, a pilot must accumulate a minimum of 40 hours of flight time, of
which 20 hours must be in dual instruction and 10 hours must be solo flight
time. According to national statistics, the average amount of flight time is
closer to 70 hours in order to become competent and then to pass the practical
test administered by a representative of the FAA or a designated examiner.
A
sport pilot rating is another option available to a prospective pilot. The
sport pilot rating is obtained with only 20 hours of flight time, of which 15
hours must be dual instruction and 5 hours solo flight. Sport pilots are
restricted to flying smaller and slower aircraft, which may have only two seats
and a maximum speed of about 138 miles per hour in level flight. Sport pilots
also can operate an aircraft without the necessity of obtaining a Class III
medical certificate from an authorized medical examiner, using instead their
valid driver license to certify their medical fitness to operate an aircraft.
There
is one local flight school at Santa Ynez Airport. Sunwest
Aviation sponsors an Introduction to Flight offer that provides, for $59, the
opportunity to actually sit behind the controls of an airplane and fly with an
FAA certified flight
instructor. This short flight around the valley gives the
prospective student a chance to sample the sensations of flight in a safe way
and to see if learning to fly is something they want to pursue.
Local
flight instructor Jeff Millard, 40, is the instructor-pilot for Sunwest Aviation. One recent morning he was providing a
lesson to student Radheka Yenamandra,
22, a student pilot. Ms. Yenamandra is in her junior
year at UCSB and has wanted to learn to fly because her grandfather was a pilot
and she listened to flying stories as she grew up in Thousand Oaks.
Ms.
Yenamandra has accumulated nearly 20 hours of dual
instruction in Sunwest Aviation’s Cessna 152 in
preparation for her first solo flight. As she was about to take off for her
lesson on a cloudless Santa Ynez morning, she first discussed, during a
pre-flight briefing, the lesson plan.
During
the one-hour flight she and instructor Millard practiced ground reference
maneuvers known as S-turns over a road.
This
practice allows the student to become familiar with control inputs needed to
keep the aircraft in a predictable and controllable path across the ground
while maintaining a set altitude between 800 to 1000 feet.
For more information on Sunwest
Aviation’s “Introduction to Flight” offer, contact Sunwest
at 688-2437.