Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, the meme that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at anything is popping up all over the place. Suppose, it takes just 1/10th that to become “fluent” at something---to be able to execute a task with a high level of competence with consistency---and we are still talking about 1,000 hours. The last two years, I averaged about 100 hours a year---and that’s with intensive training as I worked towards the private certificate and instrument rating. I suspect that my hours would be significantly less once the training objective is done. But even at 100 hours a year, that means it would take 10 years of consistent flying to achieve something like “fluency,” and a mind bending 100 years to achieve expert level skills. Clearly, I am just going to have to accept the fact that I’m going to be a pretty mediocre pilot for a while.
I suppose that the best thing one could do, short of actual practice, is to try to learn from the experience and expertise of other pilots. I’ve found that I learn a great deal from even relatively short encounters with highly accomplished pilots---whether it’s with the chief instructor at the school who did the stage checks, or the woman who did both my private and instrument check rides. So, getting to know a broad group of pilots with varying levels of experience and objectives would be useful. (And I suspect that others can learn from even low time pilots like myself, if only from our mistakes...)
On the practice end of things, one thing that stands in the way is the ever present budget constraint. Flying is never cheap, and particularly not when you are contributing to the bottom line of a flight school. In addition, renting from flight schools come with its hassles---primary among them is lack of availability, especially for long trips. After all, flight schools make their money by flying their planes as much as they can with instructors on board, not renting them out to former students for a weekend trip. This reduces the utility of having a pilot’s license in the first place, and reduces the number of hours I might ultimately fly in a year.
So, for both these reasons---enlarging the network of pilots I have access to, and having access to less expensive planes with greater scheduling flexibility---I decided to apply for membership to the Paramus Flying Club.
Among other things, membership requires a check ride with the Club’s chief instructor. The club flies an odd assortment of planes---two Cessna 172Ns (with carbuerated engines), an Cessna 182RG, and an Cessna 182 with a Jet-A powered diesel engine. The check ride was in the C172s, so first order of business was to schedule a refresher with Tom (the CFI). I hadn’t flown a carbuerated 172 in over 18 months, so there was a lot I had forgotten---including how to start the engine!
The check ride itself was very similar to the Private Pilot check ride, so nothing too problematic there. The flight originated out of Liden (KLDJ)---just a few miles south of the busy Newark International Airport. The “conga line” into Newark passes almost directly over head, and the pattern altitude is just 800 feet, with the restricted Class-B airspace starting at 801 feet. It was an airport that I had stayed well clear of over the last two years, mostly because of the fairly complex surrounding airspace, and my nervousness about busting the Class-B. Today’s check ride eased some of that anxiety.
We took off from Linden, headed west to do some maneuvers (the usual slow flight, stalls, steep turns, etc.), then to Caldwell for a few touch-and-gos. On the return flight, we crossed through Newark’s airspace, talking to Newark Tower. Perhaps because it was early Saturday AM, the tower did not seem too busy. (The instructor, Phil, assured me that the folks in the Newark tower were always professional and helpful, no matter how busy they got.)
The check ride was relatively short, and went off without incident. But I ended up learning a great deal from Phil (who I’m told is a Judge by day). For one, he helped me to clean up my pattern flying quite a bit, and gave me some useful tips about landings as well. He also noted that my scanning outside the plane was lacking---perhaps a side effect of my recent instrument training. He reminded me to look over my shoulder behind me towards the inside of the turn when initiating a bank---the plane that you are going to hit is the one that is behind and to the inside---something that no one had pointed out to me in my two years of training. He gave me a bunch of other advice---so for a relatively short flight (maybe 1.5 hours), I ended up learning a great deal.
Now all that remains is to be voted in by the broader membership. But certainly looks promising.