I'm not sure if it is the history of the club, the presence of the National Soaring Museum, or just plain enthusiasm, but Harris Hill's Junior organization is probably the largest in the country. At any given time, we have perhaps 35 prospective -or licensed, Junior pilots in our ranks. That's a lot of kids, although we have some Juniors who aren't nearly as active as others. Nevertheless, we have a reasonable core of kids who are either learning to fly or exercising the privileges of a glider pilot with the club.
I've been interested in helping kids out for some time but not really sure where to look to do that, when this opportunity landed in my lap. It's a big responsibility and you can't take it on lightly. We've got kids as young as 14 who are learning to fly. It's serious business. And their parents are entrusting the club to make sure they are safe. If you think about it too much, it will make you go wobbly.
I did, for a while, then decided the same thing I always decide. There's risk in everything. We have an excellent Junior safety record and our instructors keep a close eye on the kids -particularly once they get to fly solo, and that's pretty much all you can do unless you decide not to fly at all.
It helps that my son is one of the Juniors and is nearing his first solo. I'm just as nervous as any parent must be when they find out that their child will be piloting an aircraft alone. The FAA allows a glider to be flown solo by a person as young as 14 years old and that sure does get your attention when it is YOUR child that is going to do it. For heaven's sake, the state of New York won't allow him to drive solo until age 17!
But the argument that this is different holds water, in my view. I'm going to guess that it is actually more dangerous to drive at age 14 than to fly because the safety margin is much narrower. When you drive, there are so many more things that can quickly and immediately cause an accident -a pedestrian steps out from between two cars, a car in front of you slams on the brakes to avoid a squirrel, an oncoming vehicle swerves momentarily into your lane because the driver is distracted. There's just a world of things that can happen that often result in an accident.
Flying a glider solo has its obvious catastrophic possibilities but the real risks in aviation are usually the ones that involve a judgement that leads to a poor decision that leads to an action that makes it worse, to an accident. Any solo student, including our senior students, only flies alone under the supervision of an instructor. That means he/she must seek out and get permission to fly solo that day. If the instructor doesn't think the student is ready for the conditions, the student doesn't fly solo. It's also a good chance to check in with the student, do a quick review of the conditions he/she might face that day, and remind them of the procedures and techniques. If the instructor hasn't flown with the student before, they take a quick flight together and then the instructor decides.
The safety record speaks for itself - particularly in the training phase. But that doesn't give me any fewer butterflies than any other parent gets. And don't even ask me about my wife, who is supportive of my son's desire to fly but otherwise apoplectic about his prospects of solo.
I, of course, know that he will do fine. I flew with him for several short 1000 foot tows and told him the airplane was his to fly, that I would make no control inputs unless I thought we were in danger. What I found was a skilled pilot who takes off better than I do, flies in place behind the towplane better than I do, and, with just a tad more practice, is going to be better at landing than me. The third flight we took, I said I wasn't going to talk to him at all -he should just fly the airplane like I wasn't in it. A simulated solo. He did beautifully.
So, he's going to be fine. But I still worry because there's always that one thing that no amount of pilot skill will ever prevent or be able to correct for. It pretty much never happens. Except it does sometimes. That's what causes me the most concern but really ought to be the least of my worries.
He's out there at the gliderport today getting instruction while I'm at work and he is just THAT close to solo. It is going to happen this week and it might happen today. I'm proud and scared. Just like any parent would be.
I just want it to be over with.
