June 21, 2018 http://www.GeneralAviationNews.com — facebook.com/ganews 11I’ve told the story before of my first at-
tempt to get involved in aviation, and my
absolutely dismal failure.
It was sophomore year at Glastonbury
High School in rural central Connecticut.
A U.S. Navy recruiter came to speak to
students who were open to enlisting in the
military.
That may seem like no big deal today,
but in 1973, the U.S. had just left Viet-
nam and the gaping national wound was
nowhere near being healed.
Enlisting was not a popular choice in
my day.
Before the start of class, I approached
my geometry teacher to ask for a dis-
missal so I could attend the recruiter’s
presentation. She knocked down my re-
quest without a second thought. My less
than stellar class performance and erratic
return of homework assignments told her
that I was not pilot material, and she made
that opinion clear to all within earshot.
I didn’t get to hear what the Navy re-
cruiter had to say. I didn’t become a pi-
lot as a teenager, or even get started on
the path to pilot-hood. Instead I doubled
down on my listlessness, got cozy with
the unending boredom of high school, and
made absolutely no attempt to find mean-
ing in my education or a productive direc-
tion to my life.
I’d like to think I was alone in this ex-
perience, but I’m not. Decades later my
daughter experienced a substantially
similar thing at the same age, when a
teacher swatted my daughter’s hopes to
the ground like an annoying insect.
The teacher asked my then 16-year-old
what she’d like to do for a living when she
grew up. When my girl answered, “I want
to be a fighter pilot,” the female teacher
made her try again, saying, “That’s a
man’s job.”
Yes, that actually happened in the 21st
Century in a well ranked public high
school.
Too often — far too often — the natural
response when in conversation with a kid
who shows a sudden, unexpected desire
to do something different is to squash that
dream flat. To crush it. To kill it. To make
it clear that the kid doesn’t have what it
takes and probably never will.
Now think about that for a minute.
Just consider what that sort of entirely
negative feedback does to the hopes and
dreams of a young impressionable boy or
girl.
In my case, it put me off the idea of
flying for a decade. It took me that long
to realize that what others thought I was
capable of doing had nothing to do withwhat I was actually capable of doing.
With that realization well established
in my head, I did become a pilot and cre-
ated an entirely new career as a result of
achieving that goal.
Sadly, we as a culture have become
proficient at trying to mold the young into
duplicates of ourselves. If at all possible,
slightly less ambitious, less successful du-
plicates.
We ignore their dreams and do our best
to insert limitations into their lives. It’s as
if there is a national obsession with hold-
ing back our progeny so that we can feel
better about the decisions we’ve made
in life and the level of success we’ve
achieved.
“No” has become a thoroughly appro-
priate response to a kid who thinks big
and has the audacity to share their vision
with others.
“You can’t do that” has become the
anthem we adults are most comfortable
with.
“That’s not a practical goal” sounds aw-
fully good to someone who doesn’t have
a clue how to get from here to there, even
if that offhand rejection is a brutal disap-
pointment to the dreamer who showed
enough faith to share their hopes.
It has become entirely appropriate
in modern culture to do our best to ob-
struct the path of those who are coming
up behind us. Amazingly enough, there
seems to be nothing shameful or dis-
reputable about admonishing children to
think small, aim low, and accept a lesser
existence than they might have hoped to
achieve.
Thankfully, this astoundingly short-
sighted behavior isn’t universal. There
are people pushing back against the tide.
Folks with vision, and drive, and a faiththat kids can find success at the things
they dream of, even if they do have weird
haircuts, tattoos, questionable fashion
sense, and less than melodic musical pref-
erences. They know that at 15 years of
age, we, the readers of this column, were
not the men and women we would one
day become.
We too were a little slow in some re-
spects. We hadn’t developed the judgment
that would come to us later. We didn’t
have any money to speak of, since most
of us were still unemployed. Our grades
might not have been impressive, our ver-
bal skills could have used some brushing
up, and our resistance to taking pretty
much any aspect of life seriously might
have been perceived as a serious limita-
tion.
But somebody took a liking to us and
showed us the first few steps on the path
that led us to where we are today. Thank
goodness.
I sincerely hope you are one of those
few shining lights.
Let’s be inappropriate for a change.
When a kid who gets squeamish at the
sight of blood tells us he or she wants to
be a surgeon, let’s consider encouraging
them instead of going the other way.
When our often clumsy and frequently
accident-prone niece or nephew announc-
es they want to become an Olympic gym-
nast, let’s help find them a coach.
And when a daydreamer with low test
scores and a less than vibrant drive to
excel at geometry says they want to be-
come a pilot, let’s share a link to the Pilots
Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
and see to it that daydreaming becomes a
little more focused in the future.
It’s at least worth a shot, don’t you
think?grade 91/96 fuel, but has been approved
by Lycoming for use of unleaded automo-
tive fuel meeting ASTM D4814 93 oc-
tane, in SI 1070R.
I have only used 100LL in this engine,
which does fine on it with its 8.5:1 com-
pression ratio and sodium cooled valves,
but, Mr. Visser’s opinion that lead is need-
ed in aircraft fuels is not universally true.
LARRY A WHEELOCK
via email
BIRDS AND PLANES
RE: The NTSB Accident Report, “Bird
nest brings down Piper,” in the May 10
issue: It is difficult to believe that going
flying was so important that this pilot so
easily dismissed the glaring indications of
a hidden problem.
Those baby birds did not fly into the
cockpit on their own, so there has to be a
nest hidden somewhere.
What if it caused a control jam at a cru-
cial time or as in this case started a fire?
The only safe course of action would be
to hand it over to his A&P and start open-
ing stuff up until that nest was located.
Yes hindsight is 20/20, but hopefully
others can take a lesson from this mistake.
SARAH A
via GeneralAviationNews.comOn a Cessna 206, you can barely look
inside the engine compartment — one
tiny door to check the oil and one tiny
door on top to add oil. But on a Tri-Pacer,
you can practically see the entire engine.
It almost has a hood, except for about 6”
down the middle. No excuse here.
RANDY COLLER
via GeneralAviationNews.comCowl plugs and close the cowl flaps if
you have them.
I once watched a Gopher snake begin
to crawl up the tail spring and into the
tailcone of my 185. Hint: Possible mouse
nest. I also put a funnel upside down onmy engine preheat wire to keep the rodent
population out of the warm environment
of the engine compartment with its tasty
wires.
MANNY PUERTA
via GeneralAviationNews.comMore “stupid pilot tricks.”
It’s Spring and birds love to nest in the
engine compartment. That’s why cowl
plugs were developed.
This “pilot in command” has the au-
thority to remove the cowl to check for
nest material, and the responsibility that
the aircraft is “safe for flight,” no A&P
needed.
I’m glad to hear all passengers were
OK, but this destroyed a classic Tri-Pacer!
I flew with an aero club that has a
C172XP and the birds made a nest be-
tween the cylinders every year, until cowl
plugs were used.
The cowl plugs stopped the nesting,
but then, the pilots had to remember to
remove them, which wasn’t always thecase, even though there is a red flag stick-
ing up above the cowl on each plug. So
the line connecting the two plugs was
wrapped around the prop. On engine start,
the plugs would pull out and fly off and
sometimes cost the pilot the price of new
plugs.
JIM HUGHES
via GeneralAviationNews.comJENNY vs. STANDARD
Re: Frederick A. Johnsen’s Of Wings &
Things column in the June 7 issue: “That’s
a Standard, not a Jenny:” Thank you for a
great review of Jenny v. Standard.
About 30 years ago I was researching
candidates for Bootleg Skies, a 1920s-era
novel centered on a wayward barnstorm-
er. The Standard won the lead role. Jen-
nies made cameo appearances.
Now, to settle the Cub v. Champ con-
troversy...
Well done, sir.
PAUL BERGE
via GeneralAviationNews.comPolitics for Pilots
Jamie Beckett
LETTERS | From Page 10
Let’s get inappropriate
Jamie Beckett is the AOPA Ambassador
in Florida. A dedicated aviation advocate,
you can reach him at:
[email protected]