Solo

The summer has flown by so fast it's hard to believe that the fall is coming once again here in Spokane. But, it is true, and the cool, rainy weather has perhaps been the biggest reminder that the colder seasons of the year are once again approaching. Meanwhile, we are busy attempting to work around the weather to get our new students the best conditions possible.

We have 15 new students who started flying with us this fall, 4 of which are mine. So, it is back to the basics; teaching them how to takeoff, land, navigate, and all of the other things they need to learn in order to earn their Private Pilot's license later this fall.

We've made it up to the time for them to do their first solo; that's right, after only 4 weeks of training, about 14 hours of flight time, and a week or two of 4:00 mornings to find the calm winds, they are going to go up and fly around all by themselves. It's always a time mixed with excitement and a little apprehension for both the students and myself as an instructor. They've shown me they are fully capable to safely handle the airplane by themselves but my heart rate always goes up a little when I watch them do their first takeoff alone. I suppose it's similar, in a very small way, to a parent sending their kid off on their first day of school, or out for their first drive in the car alone, or off to college their freshman year. You hope that they remember what you've taught them and that they will use it to keep afloat amidst all of the uncontrollable factors that will try and pull them down into a ball of flame. How enjoyable and rewarding it is to watch them succeed; to smoothly return the plane to the ground and taxi back up to the hangar with the biggest grin in the world!

A Year of Flight Instructing

As my first year of flight instructing is coming to a close, I've had several thoughts about my experiences. The first thought is that I have really enjoyed teaching other people how to fly. When I first started, I suspected that I would like instructing, and, for the most part, it has been even more fun than I anticipated. There is something about working with a few students over the course of a year and watching them go from not knowing how to start an engine, to doing a solo flight to Portland and back (6 hours of flying). It is so rewarding!

One of the benefits to flight instruction is developing a comfort and heightened awareness to the aircraft in which we operate. As a student, I always heard that when you fly one airplane a lot, you acquire a sensitivity to the various characteristics of that plane. I got to experience that for the first time this year and with it came a proficiency and comfort that further increased my enjoyment of flying.

I've learned a lot about myself, and instructing has challenged and pushed me in several ways. My confidence in my ability to instruct has been shaken, and then rebuilt. I've had the not-so-fun experience of needing to sit down with a student after a particularly rough flight and give "tough love." I've celebrated with students after their first solo in an airplane and after successfully passing a stage of training. It has been a year full of growth and change, both for the students and for me as a person and instructor. I'm continuing to process that growth and am excited about the changes that have happened; excited to move into the next year better equipped to teach the next group of students!

We realized recently that general comments are often made like: “It is so fun to watch God provide,” and often no details are included. One small way we have watched God provide in the last few months financially has to do with health care. We received a refund check in the mail from my (Ali’s) OBGYN for $20.00 that to this day we do not know why we received it. When you receive money in the mail, it does not have to have an explanation like when you receive a bill. We are blessed to have all our needs met in a month and more, yet our budget has little padding for unexpected expenses. Last week my ring finger swelled up. The experience was odd and painful. I was unable to get the ring off even after trying the suggestions from friends that are nurses, and Tommy trying almost every trick he could find online. I felt so funny about paying for medical care for a finger! However, I was told that permanent damage could be done to my finger if I kept the ring on and constricting my finger. We went to Urgent Care thinking they would need to cut it off. Tommy was present holding my other hand as the nurse forced the ring off my finger as I experienced excruciating pain. The co-pay for the visit was $20.00. God had provided the exact amount in the previous month.

The experience led to contemplation of blessings and life lessons. First, what a blessing to have a community of people around me that I was able to call and seek advice from. Second, what a blessing to have a loving, supportive, and compassionate husband who held my hand through a painful experience. Third, what a gift that we just deposited the amount needed for the medical services. I was humbled by all the to-do over a single finger, and through the experience was reminded how important each appendage really is. Every little part is significant, both to our physical bodies and to the spiritual body of the church.

To really stretch the analogy, it makes me ponder and pray about what parts of my spiritual body I need to un-constrict in order for the part not to die or be damaged. An area of growth for me is learning to have a Godly anger towards injustice and not a destructive anger. Join me in asking God to transform my heart through His Spirit and through His truth in Psalm 37.

Season of Thanks

As we celebrated Thanksgiving last week and reflected on God's goodness to us, Ali and I were blessed to think about how supportive and encouraging our friends and family have been for us. We have many reasons to be thankful; not the least of which is an abundance of people who walk alongside us in many different forms.

It's amazing to think of the impact that each of us has on each others' lives. We cross paths with people every day and are touched, in some way, by them just as they are touched by us. I hope that we make a point to be intentional about the kind of mark that we leave on people. May we never take for granted the power and gift of a well placed action, word, or gesture. God has given so much to each of us, may we respond by giving deeply to others!

Clouds...Weather...Instruments....

Well, the weather has finally started to cave in on us :( Actually, it held out for a long time this fall; it's been the best fall weather we've had since Moody Aviation moved to Spokane. The blessing of all the good weather has been that we were able to stay almost right on schedule throughout the semester with the flying. Of course, now that the clouds have come in and are hanging around more, it's limiting the flying we can do to finish up the semester.

If you are wondering why the weather is an issue, it might be helpful for me to explain a little about the different licenses that can be earned. The Private Pilot license, which is what my students are working on, gives the holder the ability to fly under what is called Visual Flight Rules (VFR). Basically, the requirements for VFR are that you cannot fly in the clouds or when the visibility is less than 3 miles. On top of that, there is a minimum distance we have to stay above the ground, so you can imagine the difficulties we run into when there is a low overcast layer with fog and rain (which significantly reduces visibility).

So you might ask, how do people fly in the clouds? Well, there is another license, which is a part of Moody's training, called the Instrument license, which allows the holder to fly under what is called Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Essentially, flight under IFR allows you to fly in the clouds with no visibility, with the exception that there are minimum weather requirements for landing at an airport. Some of what I have been doing this past week and will be doing over the next few weeks is "upgrading" my Flight Instructors license to allow me to give flight instruction for the Instrument license.

That's right, not only is there a separate license to fly under IFR but there is an additional license to instruct under IFR. This is called the Certified Flight Instructor Instrument (CFII) license. I am getting this training as "staff development" through Moody at no charge, which is such a blessing! It is continuing to build my instrument proficency and experience while preparing me to teach the concepts and skills of instrument flying to these students here at Moody. I am really excited to have the opportunity to earn this license and continue my growth as a pilot and instructor!

Death

Death...it's quite a significant event...it's one that none of us who can read this have experienced, but something all of us will come face to face with. I've had cause to to consider it a little more than usual in the last month with the death of Ali's grandfather (last month) and my uncle this past weekend. One was expected, the other came as a shock...quick and without warning. Ali and I traveled to Florida for the service and to be with my family for a few days and that also prompted several thoughts.

It sure would be nice to know when people are going to die, you know, have a milestone where everyone knows, "this is when you are going to die." How much differently would we live if we knew when our time on earth was over? Wouldn't we want to make the most of our time? So why doesn't the mystery of death and the realization that our turn could be tomorrow, or today, move us to live with purpose? I, for one, want to live life to the fullest; even if I live for another fifty years I want to make each day special and unique.

My other thought relates to the after life. The awareness of death and life after death, either with or without God, impresses the importance of the gospel on me. Every day people around the world die without Christ, every day that passes is one less that another person has to live. I want to do my part in drawing others into the Kingdom of God. That means here and now, today, in my world, with everyone I meet being a mirror that reflects the light of Christ. Part of that is aviation, and more specifically, aviation that delivers the "mirrors" who will reflect Christ to those millions of people around the world who have never seen Him. What a purpose! That is why we are here!

Cross Country

In training pilots, we spend a lot of time staying close to our home base. We practice take-offs and landings, different maneuvers in the practice area just north or south of the airport, and short 10 minute hops to airports every now and then just to mix it up a little. Of course, the goal isn't to make pilots who won't ever leave their little corner in the sky and go somewhere else, the whole point of aviation is to travel from point A to point B in an efficient manner. That's why, once a student has learned enough of the basics to manage the airplane we introduce them to something called a cross country flight. The name is a little deceiving because we don't actually cross the country, however, we do leave the training grounds and go exploring to new cities and airports and scenery. I launched into the cross country phase of training with my students this past week and they have now flown several with me as well as one on their own. At this stage of training, our cross country flights are usually in the area of 3-4 hours long. We generally go to two other airports and end the flight back in Spokane. One of these flights took us from Spokane to Pullman, on to Wenatchee (which you can see in the picture), and back to Spokane. All in all, the flight was right at 4 hours, and we covered ground that map quest says should take 7 and a half hours by car! There is such a difference in time between flying and driving, and this is here is the U.S. where we have highways and interstates. Many of the places where the gospel is still just being introduced do not have the benefit of an infrastructure as useful as we have here in the States. Just think of how much more impact the airplane has in those countries where the roads, if they even exist, are in horrible condition and we can cover in an hour what it normally takes a week to travel!