Learning to Aviate with Rich Stowell
“Where are you in your journey?”
The question caught me off guard. I was loitering at the front desk when three women entered the flight school. Paul Strike introduced me: “This is Rich. He’s here from the States teaching us some new things.” One of the women was taking flying lessons in Goldie, the school’s Tecnam. Her mother and sister came along to share in and support her flight training experience.
The student didn’t ask how long I’d been an instructor. Or how many hours I had. Or any of the other things pilots usually ask each other. She opened instead with a question that required a thoughtful answer. I didn’t have one.
Coincidentally, I used journey in the first sentence on my About webpage. I put it in the opening part of a talk I had been rehearsing for AirVenture. Yet it wasn’t until the student asked about my journey that its deeper implications hit me.
Jour•ney: a set of experiences that someone has over a period of time, especially
when they change the person in some way[1]
I was intrigued by the frequent use of the word by the folks here. It was more evidence that I had come to a special flight school. A business that knew its purpose: improve the lives of others through flight.
The scope of my trip had changed over the months of planning. From flying with instructors at Strike Aviation to a multi-part conference.[2] We added a daylong workshop and weekend training clinic open to other pilots. We also tacked on a two-day industry forum led by CASA Wings Award winner, flight examiner, and podcaster Trent Robinson.[3]
Strike Aviation operates from Caboolture Airfield, 40 minutes north of Brisbane, Queensland. I traveled there to teach. And to learn.
I sat in the back of a Cessna 172 and watched Paul coach a trainee through touch and go’s. I saw him deliver two insightful ground school briefings: one on turning flight; the other on key airplane configurations. The whiteboard also had magnetic strips that Paul could arrange to connect key concepts.
I spotted a teenage student and his instructor walking in the grass as if rehearsing an aerobatic routine. But it wasn’t aerobatics. They were visualizing the traffic pattern before climbing into the airplane.
Innovation was happening here. So was community building. The instructors looked and acted like they were happy to be there. Their students did, too.
I’ve been to places like this before. Places where instructors are eager to improve to better serve their students. Places where instructors want to give students “the priceless thing that is the ability to fly.”[4] Taking money, ticking boxes, and teaching to the test are anathema at such places.
While these places are the exceptions, student-focused instructors and organizations are out there. This was evident during my daylong workshop, which included two breakout sessions.
The passion for teaching permeated the instructor breakout. For example, Lorraine MacGillivray described herself as “the ever-evolving instructor.” She captured the attitude of the ideal flight instructor perfectly: “it is a privilege to be able to teach students.”
Key takeaways from the non-instructor group focused on the student-instructor relationship. For example, this group felt that instructors often rushed. The students also wanted and valued debriefs with their instructors.
The overall decline in aeronautical knowledge and basic flying skills is global. So, it’s energizing to meet those who are passionate about improving light airplane safety and education. The conference connected stakeholders at the grassroots level in Australia, the US, and the UK.
The answer I gave the student sucked. But as they say Down Under, “I had a think on it.”
The question strips away pretentiousness. It brushes past superficial stuff like hours and ratings. Those things are a “static report of where we are on the learning continuum.”[5]
The question is philosophical. Why did you learn to fly? What have you discovered? How has it changed you?
The question connects us through the shared experience of piloting an airplane. The joy and the struggle. The artistry and the risk. The self-discovery and personal growth. The integration of mind, body, and emotion to achieve peak performance.
An airplane can take you somewhere in a few hours, but learning to fly is a
lifelong journey.
Consider, too, the culture promoted when thinking in terms of journeys. It’s a culture where aviation educators are committed to giving our best all the time. Where we guide our students along their aviation journey, not use them as our means to our end. Where we foster the mindset that regular proficiency training is normal and necessary.
I still don’t have a good answer to the question. But I’m working on it. I’m still on a journey of discovery. Looking for other dedicated instructors and learning better ways of teaching. And when I find something new, I enjoy playing with it until I’m able to pass the knowledge on to others.
So, where are you in your journey?
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Thanks to everyone who spent the time and money to come to the conference in Caboolture. A special thank you to Karen and Paul Strike, Greg Moczynski, and Trent Robinson for your warm hospitality.
[1] Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Journey. In Dictionary.Cambridge.com. Retrieved July 30, 2024, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/journey
[2] Visit Strike Aviation at https://www.strikeaviationtraining.com. Visit the conference website at https://www.uprtconference.com
[3] CASA is Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority. Trent Robinson’s podcasts are available at https://www.flighttrainingaustralia.net
[4] Richard Bach, “School for perfection,” A Gift of Wings, 1974, 159.
[5] Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), 151.
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