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I got my pilot’s license in 1984, but it was another five years before I became a pilot. Even then, my education had only just begun. Someone said: “If we are lucky, we will encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own.” I’ve been a lucky man, indeed.
Beginning almost forty years ago, I spent time in the cockpit with a series of pilots whose influence I have only recently started to appreciate. These men and women taught me the art and science of flying. Gray-haired and bifocaled, most had come of age in the forties and served in our country’s Armed Forces during those desperate times. Their generation is rapidly disappearing from the scene. Soon, they will become only memories for pilots like me who were old enough to cross paths with them in their twilight years. This essay is a belated tribute to them. They were, to borrow a term from Eugene Sledge, of the Old Breed.
Beginning almost forty years ago, I spent time in the cockpit with a series of pilots whose influence I have only recently started to appreciate.
“Why’d You Do That?” (WDYDT) my instructor shouted over the din of the Skyhawk’s engine.
I had just bungled another attempt at flying a maneuver called Pattern A. The chief aim of Pattern A and its sister, Pattern B, was to frustrate and fluster embryonic instrument pilots like me. The secondary objective of the two patterns was to teach precision instrument flying skills. Consisting of timed, coordinated climbs and descents, Patterns A and B required the pilot to be on altitude, on heading, and on time. There were a lot of reasons why that three-dimensional trifecta didn’t align, and I had explored all combinations by the end of my second lesson.
But the instructor’s question had a deeper purpose. He was prodding me to think beyond the rote movements of the Cessna’s controls. Observe, analyze, and correct—the fundamentals of instrument flying.
Two years earlier, I joined a flying club, Armel Aviation, based at Dulles International Airport (IAD). After getting checked out in a Cessna 172, I began puttering around central Virginia, building up cross-country time. My transition from a pilot certificate holder to a pilot started when I contacted Diane Cole, Armel’s president, about getting my instrument rating. Diane was Armel’s manager, scheduler, chief pilot, maintenance director, and den mother. She set me up with one of the club’s CFI-Is, which marked the beginning of my journey to becoming a pilot. A networker before the term became popular, Diane was the nexus of the remarkable group of pilots I would encounter over the following decades.
Diane tasked Charlie Stanton, a USMC veteran of WWII, to instruct me in the craft and discipline of an instrument-rated pilot. Tall, lean, opinionated, and looking perpetually pissed off about something, Charlie was all business. He didn’t mince his words either, speaking in that clipped, point-blank manner of the military. He could have been a character from a Pat Conroy novel, perhaps Santini’s twin brother. During our first few lessons, I instinctively addressed him as sir.
Each lesson began with a call to Flight Service before leaving home. I’d get a full flight briefing, regardless of the weather. Then, we’d meet in Signature’s lobby, IAD’s FBO, and go over the day’s lesson: destination, altitude, maneuvers, approaches, and completion standards. Briefing finished, we’d hitch a ride in Signature’s van to IAD’s midfield parking area. The flying club’s Cessnas and Pipers stood out like a flock of scrawny pigeons as the eagles of Pan Am, TWA, British Airways, and the like lumbered by on their way to and from the runways.
With checklist in hand, I’d preflight the aircraft, dutifully returning the few ounces of avgas I had drained from the wing tanks before entering the cockpit. After startup, I’d record a VOR check in the aircraft log while waiting for our clearance. Then came the long taxi to the runway.
“Centerline,” Charlie barked as I taxied out during my first lesson. I’d gotten sloppy the past two years using those oversized taxiways. Over the next few months, Charlie would bark a lot, but never again about my taxiing.
Charlie, a child of the Depression, didn’t waste anything, especially time. Once, while holding short on a high-speed taxiway, we began our takeoff roll from there, becoming airborne just as we met the runway. A slight turn, and we were on heading and climbing out. “Waste of time, those high speeds,” Charlie remarked.
The first WDYDT Charlie uttered elicited a shrug and a meek “I don’t know” from me. Charlie then ticked off each transgression with a raised finger, one after the other.
The number of WDYDTs uttered during a lesson was inversely proportional to my performance. Not all WDYDTs were the same, however. A rapid-fire WDYDT, preceded by an exasperated “Now,” signaled an egregious error. FUBAR! Cease immediately and start over. More than four or five WDYDTs meant a cessation of the day’s planned maneuvers and a return to base. Charlie could sense it when I became frustrated, and he knew better than to whip the donkey. After a few flights, I began to grasp the subtleties of flying Patterns A and B. Understanding and purpose replaced my rote manipulations of the Cessna’s throttle and yoke. I was spot on now, rolling out on heading, on altitude, and on time. Hallelujah!
From there, the lessons became more intense as we focused on the meat and potatoes of instrument flying. Taking off from Dulles, I’d line up on the runway’s centerline, align the DG, drop the hood, and open the throttle. Rolling down the runway with reference only to my DG, I’d make minor heading corrections with the rudder to remain centered.
We flew the usual approaches: VOR, ILS, and the now extinct NDB. I’d fly the approach, go missed, switch comm and nav frequencies, and cross-check a radial, all while hand-flying the Cessna and talking to ATC with a handheld mic. The basics: aviate, navigate, and communicate. We stretched beyond the basics of the practical test standards. Like Jimmy Stewart in Strategic Air Command, we flew GCA approaches at Andrews AFB. Andrew’s controllers were happy to oblige, even asking us to do a few more so they could get in some practice. Each lesson ended as it began—under the hood.
We’d shoot a poor man’s CAT III back into IAD. At DA, Charlie would call out trim and throttle adjustments while I kept the localizer needle centered with slight rudder movements. The hood didn’t come off until we touched down. I think those were some of the smoothest landings I’ve ever made.
But it wasn’t all hood work with Charlie. We also flew in IMC. I thought flying in the weather was easier; even Charlie seemed more subdued in the soup. One foggy morning out at Dulles, Charlie and I were waiting for the ceiling to improve so we could launch on an IFR training flight. We were doing a ground school session in Signature’s lounge when I glanced outside just as the Concorde, nose canted down and its talon-like gear extended, exploded out of the overcast, and slapped down on the runway like a giant bird of prey. “Look!” I exclaimed, pointing at the Concorde as it hurtled down the runway. Charlie turned slowly around. The Concorde had vanished by then. He turned back with his hands upturned and eyes rolling. “The Concorde, it just landed. It was awesome,” I blurted out. “Oh, okay,” Charlie shrugged. Back we went to the lesson.
Shortly after the Concorde sighting, Charlie signed me off for my checkride. My flying had become crisp, precise, and confident. He hadn’t said much during our recent flights; I hadn’t heard a WDYDT in a couple of weeks. He’d sit back and observe, silently nodding in approval as I went through the day’s lesson. My time had come.
Charlie scheduled my checkride with a local examiner. I’d fly out of Dulles, giving me a home-field advantage. The only problem was that it wouldn’t occur for another three weeks. Right then, I was at the top of my game, but in three weeks, I’d lose my edge—my skills and confidence deteriorating with each passing day. My solution to this angst-inducing thought was more practice. During the next three weeks, Charlie and I flew an additional ten hours and 20-plus approaches. We even went up the day before the checkride.
I met my Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) in Signature’s lobby. Charlie had told me about her. A Women’s Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) during the war, she was, among other things, an instrument flight instructor for the Army Air Force. She had accumulated over 27,000 flight hours during her aviation career, received a Congressional Gold Medal for her military service, and was a Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame member. I was expecting an old, grizzled female version of Charlie, maybe something along the lines of a Rosa Klebb with a pilot’s license. Instead, I got Velta Benn.
I was waiting for her at Signature’s front desk when she arrived. Ms. Benn looked to be about Charlie’s age. She had brown, silver-streaked hair in a perm that ended just above the collar of a well-worn leather flight jacket. I approached her and introduced myself. “Why don’t we get some coffee and find a place to sit down,” she said after a few minutes of small talk. We stepped over to a commercial coffee burner next to the desk and filled a couple of styrofoam cups with industrial-grade java before heading to the table I commandeered. After we sat down, I handed her my pathetically thin Cessna Pilot Training Center logbook. She perused it for several minutes, reading each of the thirteen entries per page. She smiled when she got to the last page as she read the multiple practice approaches flown with Charlie over the past few weeks.
Without looking up from the logbook, she asked, “What are the minimum requirements for a precision and non-precision approach?” Another question followed, then another. I felt more like I was sitting across the kitchen table from my mother than the woman who would determine my fate as an instrument-rated pilot.
The questions continued. Ms. Benn probed deeper, even teasing a few answers out of me that I struggled with. After an hour of that, we went flying. There were no surprises. I was well prepared. We rounded up the usual suspects: VOR, NDB, ILS, partial panel, and unusual attitudes. The weather was perfect—high overcast and no wind, not a bump in the air. My NDB approach was flawless. And then it was over. A bit anticlimactic, I thought, even easy compared to one of Charlie’s lessons.
As she endorsed my logbook on that balmy February day, she remarked that it was one of the best checkrides she had done in a long time. Charlie had prepared me well. I called him to give him the news when I got home, but he wasn’t there. His wife said he’d been pacing about all afternoon like an expectant father. Later, I got ahold of him and told him about Ms. Benn’s remark. I could hear his smile crack open over the phone.
The training I received from Charlie was thorough, demanding, and occasionally frustrating and distressing. It was not easy. He took his task of turning me into an instrument pilot seriously. I know instrument-rated pilots who, as students, never flew in IMC, shot a GCA approach, practiced a zero-zero takeoff and landing, or had even heard of Pattern A or B, let alone flown them.
Months later, I sat for my second instrument checkride. The self-administered one that all pilots undergo on their first single-pilot IFR flight. On an overcast spring day, I punched into the soup and stayed there for two hours on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Maryland’s Gaithersburg Airport (GAI). I couldn’t get into GAI, so I went missed and diverted to Frederick’s Airport (FDK), shooting the ILS to get on the ground. For a fleeting moment, I could sense Charlie’s presence in the right seat, nodding his head approvingly. I never saw Charlie again after getting my instrument rating. But to this day, some thirty-six years later, I occasionally hear Charlie ask, “Why’d you do that?”
- Flying with the Old Breed—Why’d You Do That? - October 30, 2024
Well written brother. Made me travel back in my mind to some people I would have never know apart from flying. Not having ever met them would have been a tragic loss.