It was one of those classic Sydney autumn days: almost no wind, sharp clear skies, perfect for flying. Despite what seemed ideal conditions, I was to learn a lesson which stays with me 25 years on.
I hadn’t planned this flight. I simply woke up, looked out the window, rang the flying school and booked an aeroplane. It was 1985, and I had the old Restricted Private Pilot’s licence, (now more or less the GFPT), which let me take passengers in the training area, but not to land away from home. I’d had the license for less than a year, with about 85 hours’ total time: the exact scenario for a problem to arise. Before I left the house I said to a housemate (still one of my best friends), “would you like to go flying?”.
He thought for a second, and agreed. He even donned his bomber jacket and white silk scarf; I reminded him that we were taking a C152, not a Spitfire. Then, before we even left the house, I made my first mistake. I failed to ask him several important things. Had he flown in a light aircraft before? If so, did he enjoy it? If he hadn’t previously been in a little aeroplane, I should then have given him a thorough briefing on what to expect. So we set off to Bankstown Airport, unwittingly with two quite different ideas of what might happen.
We clambered aboard the tiny C152, and I got another clue that should have alerted me. My friend is not a small man – he’s about six foot three in old money, and around 100 kilos, so he had a difficult time closing the door. This also meant his left shoulder was directly against my right shoulder, a situation that even for me wasn’t comfortable. I could still operate everything safely (so I thought), but it wasn’t ideal.
The one thing, fortunately, that I thought to say was that if he wasn’t happy about anything, we would turn back to the airport immediately and land. I must even then have sensed his unease. Nevertheless, we got a clearance from the ever patient ATC folks and off we went.
My plan, such as it was, was to depart to the west and head towards Warragamba Dam, always a spectacular sight, even after the umpteenth forced landing exercise. We lifted off runway 29R, and established the aeroplane on a climbing upwind leg towards the west. We had barely gotten to the departure altitude of 1000 feet when I noticed my friend beginning to show signs of anxiety. His breathing started to become rapid, and he appeared to be searching for things to hang onto. When we leveled off at 1000 he really started to lose it.
We were still just within the BK CTR. He went a distinct shade of parchment white, and began to grab the coaming above the panel. When I thought he was about to tear it off,
I recalled that I’d said to him that if he was uncomfortable, we’d simply turn around and go home.
So that’s what we did. I distinctly remember simply doing a 180 right there, just before the zone boundary, to head straight back to the runway. Did I talk to anyone? No. I was so concerned about my friend’s state of mind that my only priority was to get on the ground as soon as possible.
By this time he was looking around in a manner suggesting real panic. We were mid-downwind for the same runway we’d departed from, 29R. The only thing I could think to do was employ a technique a psychologist friend had happened to remark on some time previously.
With very anxious people, it can sometimes help, apparently, to speak to them very gently and slowly, attempting to convey thereby that you are calm, and so they might then come to believe there is no cause for alarm, and begin to lose their anxiety. Anyway, I tried it. I showed my friend the airport coming up. As we descended I pointed out the runway we would land on – “that one there, the one nearest to us. We’ll be on the ground in no time. See, there it is! No problem!”
This seemed to help a little. I said that everything was fine and as it should be. I told him we’d be on the ground in a couple of minutes. I showed him the flaps coming down, and our airspeed reducing. He began to calm down. (Funny how most people who hate flying think that the closer to the ground they are the better.
I didn’t think that was quite the moment to tell him that most GA accidents happen in the immediate region of the airport, much less that the more altitude, the more options, etc). I had already thought to myself “what if he really panics, and grabs the controls or something? What might I do then? Do I hit him?” There was really no-one else to ask (so I thought), so I merely improvised.
As it turned out, we got down safely, through no credit of mine, except that my basic training allowed me to perform the circuit and landing without even thinking about it. As soon as the wheels touched down and I opened the window for air my friend was okay. He has never flown in a light aeroplane since.
What is there to learn about this very dangerous but very lucky episode? Plenty. Firstly, I should never have assumed that everyone is as enthusiastic about flying as I am, nor that a potential passenger knows anything at all about flying in an aeroplane. What arrogance!
I now give all my passengers a little talk about basic aerodynamics, including placing the back of a spoon against the flow of water from a tap – the spoon is drawn into the tap, which is more or less Bernoulli’s effect (I know it’s not exactly right, but it doesn’t matter). The principle of lift is illustrated. Also illustrated is that you care enough about your passengers to take the trouble to do it. They feel better already.
Then, usually on the way to the airport, I explain what they might experience in a light aeroplane that they will not have seen in a big jet. After all, most people’s experience of flight is in an airliner. Clearly this is vastly different from a light aeroplane, for all that the principles might be the same.
When I started flying, the single most striking thing was that I could see about 270 degrees around me, and most especially in front. I could therefore see the motion of the aircraft relative to the ground, as it approached the airport. Of course, in an airliner, no-one but the crew can see that. I believe this was a major factor in my friend’s anxiety about our very short flight. He had never seen this perspective before, and he didn’t expect it. This is where I failed him again.
There is also my complete failure to seek help from ATC. Granted, it was a tricky situation, and I wasn’t sure how to speak to the tower without alarming my friend even more. We didn’t have headsets – surely as essential as any aviation gadget – so I couldn’t speak to them confidentially. This should have been (and was) crucial. It should have been the first thing I did. As it was, I omitted it entirely. I still have no idea why I didn’t try to speak to anyone. I can only put this down to the stress of the moment, but it illustrates a failure in training as well.
For me, the message I got in training was that it was far more important to get the phraseology right than to understand that these highly trained professionals are there to help us. Sure, every now and then we find a narky controller. We all have bad days. But if I’d spoken to someone discreetly at the time, it could have made all the difference.
To this day I have no idea how the BK controllers slotted us into our highly unorthodox arrival without any post-landing fuss or even comment. I’m only grateful that it was in fact a C152 and not a Spitfire that we launched in on that day, with my friend in his bomber jacket and white silk scarf. And I still haven’t told him that I was shaking more than he was afterwards.