Thinking Out Loud: Aviation is a strange land
It's tough for newbies. We have our own language, our own social constructs and our own ways.
To answer your first question: Yes Covid is still screwing with me, but I think we’ll survive. So, I’m offering up some BD-words from the 1990s that hopefully make more sense than something I’d be typing fresh.
One quick personal observation that proves Covid can have a good effect: In our case, the Redhead and I have never spent this much time just holding hands watching the tube. It’s as if we’re falling in love all over again. It’s wonderful! And I don’t remember a time when a student or a deadline wasn’t beating on me to get something done. So, we’ve just been sitting and grooving. It has been glorious! Now if we can just stop coughing.
What follows are thoughts about what it’s like to be a newbie in any special interest area and especially aviation.
Grassroots
Re-inventing the Beginning
After a few decades of doing almost anything, it’s easy to forget what it was like at the beginning. It's easy to forget how it felt to find yourself in an intellectually foreign land with its own language, its own unique population and its own ways of unintentionally making you feel stupid.
I pity people, like The Arizona Redhead. My lady Marlene. New to aviation and coming in at a very high and intense level, I can't count the hours she has sat around while the rest of us babble on in a language of our own making. The aviationese words sound like English. Often, however, they make no sense or tell only partial stories.
Now that she's learning to fly, she's beginning to decode the conversations. Sometimes, still, they move faster than her newfound av-brain can decode.
That's the way it is with any who decide to step past the chain link fence and become part of aviation. They are "Strangers in a Strange Land "(one of my favorite Leon Russell songs). They have a steep learning curve in front of them.
Newcomers not only have to learn the language and the skill, but they have to understand the maze-like construction of the communities that make up aviation. They have to learn the different activity definitions which delineate different skills: Instrument, aerobatics, bush flying, etc. They must understand the various communities such as general aviation, sport aviation, military. Then they learn the neighborhoods: Antiques, float planes, homebuilts, warbirds. If they make it that far, they have to let the faces and names of the mechanical personalities that populate the local communities invade their minds to become part of their conversation: Bonanza, Pitts, Skyhawk, Staggerwing, etc. The numeric puzzles which identify addresses will forever challenge them; B-25, 120, P-51, 421. Given enough time, every word, every phrase will evoke an instant image in their, by then, cram-packed little minds.
When they first stand at aviation's door and stare across the aeronautical landscape, they are blissfully unaware of its sheer immensity. It is so big; they can't begin to grasp its size. All they see are wings, blue sky and brown Earth. If, at the beginning, they could understand that it takes years to become conversant and a lifetime to understand, many would be overwhelmed and turn back before taking the first step.
It's hard for most of us to remember how it was at the beginning. When I was teaching guitar in college, I'd periodically turn the instrument over and try to play left-handed, just remind myself how hard my students had it. There's no easy way for to do that in an airplane. Recently, however, I stumbled into something which made me once again aware of how difficult it is to be the new kid on the block, eager to learn but knowing nothing. The subject is saddles.
Okay, so learning to talk saddle may be a little far afield from airplanes, but the learning curve is exactly the same. And, no, we don't have a horse. Don't want a horse. Won't get a horse. If you can't put gas in it, I don't ride it. Period.
My attraction to saddles is that I'm fascinated by the world of which they are cultural artifacts. I had no idea how much had to be learned when talking history and saddles at the same time. Incidentally, a side effect of the saddle adventure is that I can’t watch a western without picking apart how strong or how weak their historical accuracy is.
When first entering the world of saddles, the only thing I saw was saddles. Then, almost instantly, I made a hard decision between English and Western. The appearance and use, along with the historical connections, made the differences obvious. When new to aviation, at first there are simply airplanes. However, very quickly an interest-driven decision is made towards civil aviation, military or general aviation. The size and shapes are obvious, and the decision is made early as to which path to follow.
In saddles, I went western. In airplanes, most go General Aviation with a side interest in Military. I somehow wound up most heavily invested in almost everything but General Aviation.
Once that decision was made, initially I saw only western saddles, those with horns. Then I began to sense a difference in shape and personality. Once an individual has gone past the initial general aviation learning experience, they gravitate in one direction or another with the major split being at the sport aviation versus Spam Can juncture. They decide between mainstream "normal" airplanes or those at the fringes which inevitably appear more exciting/interesting.
As my saddle vocabulary expanded, the first leather-bound differences I noticed was the height of the back of the saddle, the "cantle". High ones were older and connected to the culture and activities of a different time. That's where my western leanings took me. Many will make a similar decision as they survey sport aviation. They may cull biplanes out of the herd as their primary interest. Or maybe it will be homebuilts, or classics.
1904 McClellan cavalry. 1910 barrel-dated 1903 Springfield in scabbard stamped for 6th Cavalry which went after the Moros in the Philippines in 1907 and Pancho Via in Mexico in 1916. Sure wish they could talk. A note: None of this stuff is high dollar. We haunt gunshows and swap meets where saddles, WW II gunsights, etc. are out of context and sell for pennies on a dollar as compared to antique shops or shows.
The cut gets finer and finer as knowledge progresses.
Then I noticed the way the rigging (cinch/stirrups, etc) was attached and the way the skirt and jockeys were constructed. I learned what each was saying about the saddle's age and use. Each began to tell their story to me. The details leaped out just as when a person first sees only “biplanes” then realizes the world defined by two-wings is as wide as he or she thought aviation to be at the beginning.
Before long, I found my interest had narrowed to Stagg-rigged, half and three-quarter seat, high-back saddles of the 1800's with a side interest in McClellan cavalry saddles. There, in a single sentence, I have explained myself and eliminated probably 99.9% of the saddles in existence.
Working saddle from the 1870s. Slick fork, Stagg-rigged (note how rigging goes up around horn), high back (the older they are, the higher the cantle), 3/4 seat to make it easier for the horse.
At this point, the aviator's interest and detail-knowledge is so finely honed, they don't just like biplanes, they may be homed-in on WACO's and not just any WACOs but cabin WACO's and not just any cabin WACO but those with the wonderfully, sensual lines found only on the SRE and it’s close relatives.
450 hp WACO SRE: Cabin is like a Packard limo, almost 200 mph, majestic handling. Everyone watches you taxi up.
It is also at this point, as I found in my western meanderings, that the individual is so steeped in facts and figures, culture, and details that they arrive at one absolute conclusion: They suddenly realize, as deeply as they’ve studied, they actually don't know squat about their interest. They realize that the more they learn, the more there is to learn.
Each door in a new interest opens to a dozen more doors and the search for knowledge becomes geometric in its growth. That's when you know you've truly crossed a threshold into a new world. That’s when you realize you know nothing and, try as you may, will never come close to knowing everything. However, you know you’ll never stop trying. In other words, welcome to the world of aviation, where we are all forever fledglings. bd
Anyone shopping for an airplane should also spend some time on Barnstormers.com, a treasure trove of special airplanes.
Unfortunately a young person getting into GA is going to have a very narrow view of this wonderful discipline. Nearly every flight school for 1000 miles has a ramp full of nothing but Skyhawks or Archers. Sure, they’re great trainers, but there is almost no opportunity anymore to try a tailwheel, which means little opportunity to experience things like aerobatics or real off-airport adventures. As you have lamented in other articles, the major publications don’t even write about unusual airplanes anymore (is a Citabria or Cub so unusual?) so a newer pilot can be forgiven for not even knowing they exist. Aviation is as varied as the saddles you write about and I wish the new generation could be exposed to more than just spam cans.