Did the same thing 20 years ago. At the time I was going through a divorce,
going to grad school, working full time and chasing skirts. That left
little time for the learning part of flying. One day, during my 7th flight
hour in a C 150II, I did my first power-on stall. Dropped like a rock, saw
terra firma in the windshield, let go of the yoke, recovered, felt moisture
in my pants, and told the instructor: "lets land NOW!"

Didn't go back because the stall maneuver scared the living **** out of me
and I figured I didn't have the spare time to devote to learning to fly
that was required. The only other activity that I had time for back then was
getting laid: it required no instruction or study, but it WAS expensive!

Now I'm older, I have more control of my time and I'm married. I'm spending
alot of time learning to fly and, ironically, I may get divorced because of
it. But I'm pressing on. Now if a maneuver scares me, I do it five times
again. It helps to be older and not have children so that you don't worry
about screwing up their lives if you make a mistake and you can push your
personal envelope with less trepidation because you've lived a decent
portion of life by the time you get to my age.







"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:3gULe.251379$x96.181434@attbi_s72...
Most of our guests at the hotel are not pilots. It's simply a matter of
numbers -- there are a LOT more non-pilots than there are pilots, and they
need hotel rooms, too. Many of our guests are "wannabes" or aviation
enthusiasts, however. Although we have found many people who are afraid
of
flying, we have yet to meet someone who doesn't like airplanes -- and
those
people are our "bread & butter."

An amazing number of guests tell me that they have taken flight lessons,
but
quit flying for one reason or another. I have never been able to
understand
this phenomenon, since -- after the first lesson -- I was hopelessly
hooked.
I would have done anything to finish getting my ticket (and did go so far
as
selling my blood plasma for flight money) -- so the concept of quitting
just
never made sense to me. I always inquire about their reasons for
quitting,
and I often hear the same old explanations (money, time, kids, wives,
etc.) -- but I often sensed that there was more to the story than they
were
telling.

I've often suspected that these near-pilots had lived through some
life-changing event, or had been badly scared during flight training. I
simply couldn't fathom what else could cause someone to simply jump off
the
horse and walk away from it, forever -- but I had never been able to coax
the story out of any of these "almost-pilots." The macho, gung-ho
attitude
that seems to envelope aviation seemed to preclude ever finding anyone who
could admit (perhaps even to themselves) what had happened to them.

Until a few days ago. As many of our guests do, this fellow was hanging
around the lobby, studying all the gizmos, gadgets, books, models and
memorabilia that have spread like lichen all over the place in the last
three years. As is my wont, I struck up a conversation with the guy, and
we
casually discussed aviation and airplanes for a few minutes.

It soon became obvious that this guy knew way more about flying than our
average "wannabe" guest. Sure enough, upon inquiring, he admitted taking
18
hours of instruction, and he had several hours of post-solo flight time
under his belt -- before he quit.

Maybe it was the relaxed nature of the setting, or perhaps it was the fact
that he was on vacation and simply let his guard down, but when I asked
him
why he had quit (as I ask EVERYONE who tells me they had stopped flying),
he
actually told me truthfully and sincerely what had happened.

It seems he had just soloed a week earlier, and was out practicing touch
and
goes on his own. There was a bit of a cross wind -- nothing bad -- which
apparently increased while he was working the pattern. On his last
take-off, when he rotated the cross wind kicked up and carried him out
over
the adjacent bean field, and in his confusion he found himself sinking
toward the beans.

In a panic, he luckily overcame the urge to simply pull the yoke back
into
his belly, and pushed the nose over. Doing so gained some speed, and he
climbed out normally. He then came around and landed with some
difficulty,
but without incident.

This seemingly innocent incident scared him so badly that he walked into
the
FBO, sat down with his instructor, and told him he was through.

His instructor asked him what happened, told him that what he had
experienced was easily countered with good technique, told him he had done
well and acted properly, and immediately booked him for a few more dual
lessons.

To no avail. This guy was so taken aback by his brush with disaster that
he
just couldn't get into flying anymore. He did fly a couple of more times
with his instructor, but he could never get back in the saddle. He quit
altogether.

That was over ten years ago. When I encouraged him to try again, and told
him that it was never too late to get back into flying, he wistfully but
firmly replied that it would never happen.

At last -- I've *finally* found someone who could explain what had
happened
to foil their dreams of flight. I've never, ever been able to understand
this all-to-common occurrence -- and there are other good reasons to quit
flying, for sure -- but I have often wondered if this kind of scare during
training isn't happening more often than we know about?

(And before you dismiss a drifting take-off as being non-life-threatening,
see: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI05FA080&rpt=p This is an
accident that happened in nearby West Union, Iowa, earlier this summer,
when
a low-time pilot in a Cherokee 235 drifted off the runway centerline,
bounced in the weeds, flipped the plane, and killed himself and his two
passengers.)

It was with a heavy heart and a feeling of dismay that I bid our guest
farewell. Perhaps it was for the best that he quit flying, but I couldn't
help but think that he had given up too soon, and that with a little extra
guidance he could have made a good pilot.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"