My Flying Scholarship
Winter 2011: Helen Saxon-Jones
As we drove to the airport I could feel my eyes wide with nerves and anticipation. I wasn’t just jetting off to America for the first time in my life, I was heading for a 6 week life-changing experience. But I wasn’t just anxious about what lay ahead; I had to get there first and although I had a fellow successful scholar as my travel companion, he was a permanent wheelchair user so I really was ‘doing it for myself’. No husband or friend to hold my hand, literally or metaphorically, during my 8 hour flight and all that travelling abroad would entail. Of course as soon as I kissed my husband goodbye at the gate the ‘get on with it’ mode kicked in and the route to Purdue University in Indiana was smooth and without incident.
We were met at Chicago Airport by one of Purdue’s flight instructors, Aaron, who also spent the following day with us helping us to settle in and see the sights of West Lafayette and the expansive Purdue facilities and campus. We didn’t get much time for sightseeing though, Monday morning came and it was straight to work. I was introduced to my flying instructor, Ryan, and our ground tutor, Scott, given an unreasonable number of text books to digest and the tools of the trade that we would require; a flight computer or whizz-wheel as we call it, a protractor and maps. My training began the following day and it didn’t go well. While I had clambered into a Piper Warrior aircraft during the selection process at RAF Cranwell, I had never flown in a light aircraft, let alone been in control of one! The flying was fine; I didn’t feel scared, or sick, or out of control, but when I took charge of the control column and turned the aircraft, I felt distinctly out of my depth. And I wasn’t very good at it! The call to my husband that night was punctuated with tears, which were in turn interspersed with, ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ Thankfully my ever encouraging hubby knew better and by the end of the conversation, I was planning what I’d do differently the next day. A good night’s sleep was all it took for my mojo to reappear and I was eager to make sure my next flight was better. And it was. And I was hooked.
I had worried how I would cope with the physical demands of piloting an aircraft. I’ve had RA for 24 years and it’s certainly left its mark. It took me a few flights to work through a couple of things like the sequence of the landings. You’re pretty busy when you’re preparing to land; flaps, trim, radio, power, more flaps, and for the first few weeks I was an uncoordinated mess. With my arthritic arms and bent hands wafting frantically about the cockpit collecting bruises along the way, I wondered if there would ever be a time that it would be the serene experience that my instructor said it should be. The biggest physical problem I had to overcome was switching the fuel tanks during flight. It was also the more imperative! But my instructor put his thinking cap on and came up with the idea of using a hammer. No, not to beat it into submission or threaten it until it turned itself, but simply a weighty enough implement to lever the switch into position. It worked a treat. Soon enough I was flying on my own (after a hideous week of takeoff and landing lessons and a spell of homesickness), switching the fuel tanks with the hammer, carrying out my landing sequence (serenely) and performing all the functions required of a pilot. I was fortunate to score highly on all of my written exams, my lowest score of 90% (20% above the pass mark) on the formal FAA written exam. On Tuesday 2nd August, just 5 weeks to the day that I had my first, hideous lesson, I underwent my oral and practical skills exams and passed, achieving my Private Pilot’s Licence. I travelled back to the UK 4 days later exuding a confidence that I had never previously experienced. I had travelled abroad alone. I had driven a car on the wrong side of the road without crashing. I had learned to fly a plane and I came home a pilot.