Flying: The Real Deal

Whenever I told people that I was going to aerospace medicine training this summer, invariably the first question they would ask me was, "Will you get to fly?"  No, no, I would assure them, they wouldn't let us medical students even near the planes.  If I continued the AMP courses during my fourth year of medical school, I told them, I might get to go into some planes, but definitely not this summer.

I was wrong.

Since the first few days at AMP, when we found out that we would get to do some flying, I've been dying with excitement.  I didn't want to tell too many people, though, because I know how finicky flying can be.  You never know what the weather is going to do, and that's only one of the many variables that I saw being able to muck up the plans.  One of the other variables, perhaps surprisingly, is me.  It turns out I am too small to fly in the T-38; I simply don't weigh enough for the ejection seat.  Also, there wasn't enough equipment for everyone to fly, so there was the possibility that I would have been given simulator time instead.  But no, I was lucky enough to draw the T-1 in our AMP lottery, so yesterday, I (along with 2 other classmates) was able to fly and observe -- listen, watch, experience -- a T-1 sortie.

Our aircraft, the smallest (at that point) plane I'd ever flown in

We flew about a half-hour northeast of San Antonio and then began our low-level mission.  The plan was to fly at 500 feet above ground level for a half-hour, looking for specific points along the way to guide the flight and meet mock objectives.  Unfortunately, the half-hour ended up being only 8 minutes because of impending thunderstorms.  We were recalled to Randolph and barely made it back, being chased by lightning on our approach.  The little jet was buffeted around quite a bit by the wind and turbulence as we came in for landing -- much more fun than a roller coaster!  Even though we had a shorter-than-planned flight, it was still a privilege to have a new experience and chat with the pilots, as well as get a much more detailed glimpse at all of the behind-the-scenes details that go into flying any plane.  It was fun to try to watch the instruments and decode the pilot-ese squawking over the radio.

It's not every day you get this close of a view!

I was floored enough that I was able to observe the pilots yesterday.  Today, I got to be the pilot.  We spent the day at the Stinson airfield, where we -- no joke -- all got to try our hands at flying.  After a few morning briefings and a short ride in a simulator, we each took the controls of a tiny airplane with an instructor pilot at our side.  From my T-1 ride yesterday, I already knew that pilots had to deal with a lot of information coming their way, that they had to pay attention to so many dials and knobs and meters while both flying and communicating.  Today, I realized that there was even more on top of that.  Let me just state the obvious to try to emphasize: Flying a plane is not like driving a car!  Sure, there are similarities, but on a car you don't have to worry about horizon level, altitude, degrees of bank, propeller torque, rudders, trim, lift, and -- oh -- weather.  Despite all of this, we all had the chance to fly, and we really got to fly!

I can't believe they let us do this.

My instructor let me get a little taste of everything.  I taxied down the runway, using the rudder pedals to steer (obviously not intuitive).  Then, on cue, I pushed the throttle in all the way, watched the speed rapidly increase, and then pulled the nose up -- and we were flying!  In the air, I had still had the controls.  We flew around 2000 feet to stay well out of the 2500-foot cloud ceiling.  I got the chance to practice gentle turns (around 30 degrees) as well as steep ones (50-55 degrees, pulling up to maintain altitude).  I got to feel how "mushy" the stick got as the plane gradually slowed and came to a (planned) stall midair, how the nose dropped away, and then how easy it was to recover and push back into powered flight.  We then headed toward the airfield to practice some touch-and-go runway approaches.  My instructor said that he was very happy with how well I was doing and wanted to let me land, but unfortunately, the winds (which had been growing all day) were throwing the tiny airplane around too much (as near-30-knott gusts tend to do).  We had been avoiding patches of heavy rain throughout the flight, and Hurricane Alex's menacing clouds from the southeast were quickly whipping their way toward us and the airfield.  I was happy to allow the instructor to land; it was still quite the exciting landing, as the strong crosswinds forced him to touch down just on the left side and roll for a few seconds before allowing the right to come to the ground.

After a successful flight.  Note the scary clouds in the background.

So, to all my friends to whom I inadvertently lied when discussing my summer plans: I apologize.  YES, I did get to fly.  And you can bet that I'll be back as soon as they let me!