Posted on January 10th, 2012 by Dave Stein
Yesterday I sold my plane. It is a 1978 Cessna 182Q. Seats 4. Cruises at 160 MPH. What a wonderful plane it is.
I bought the plane in 1995 after Datalogix International, a company where I was a principal, went public. I flew nearly 2,000 hours in the plane with trips to Florida, Atlanta, Chicago, Canada, Lake of the Ozarks, and many dozens of airports up and down the East Coast. I made 20 trips down the “Hudson River Corridor” at 900 feet, which always included a loop around the Statue of Liberty at 500 feet. (Check out this video from my plane.) I took a lot of people, especially kids, for their first plane ride. My special flights around Martha’s Vineyard were a treat in return for donations to some of our local charities.
Everyone seems to want to know why I sold the plane. Here are a few reasons: First, I wasn’t flying enough, and that’s dangerous. See below. Second, the cost of flying has skyrocketed in the past five years. Fuel is more than $6.00 per gallon, and at 13 gallons per hour, that adds up. And since my plane was 34 years old, there was always something that needed repair or replacement. There are no cheap repairs on an airplane. Third, I’m not comfortable burning up fuel tanks full of 100-octane leaded gasoline just to have some fun. It’s a carbon footprint issue for me.
From the time I started flying in 1994, I learned a lot. And not just about piloting an airplane. I learned that:
- Practice makes perfect. Flying on instruments in the rain, at night, into an airport you’ve never visited before takes a lot of skill. There is no on-the-job training here. If you aren’t on top of your instrument flying skills, you’re toast.
- Rules are made to be followed. FAA regulations are numerous, serious, detailed, and designed to reduce the many risks associated with flying. Break one, and you have taken the first step to a potentially disastrous situation. A few times I inadvertently broke the rules and each time, could have easily wound up in a dangerous situation. I’m happy to expand on this if anyone is interested.
- You have to be true to yourself. Sounds corny, but it isn’t at all. 99% of what pilots do is self-policed. As just one example, the FAA does not check that you’ve done six instrument approaches in the prior six months when you file a instrument flight plan. If you haven’t, you’re at serious risk, and you have only the person in the mirror to tell you not to do it. It’s sobering to have that degree of responsibility. By the way, few pilots I know cheat the system. Just read through the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) accident reports as I did every month, and you’ll see that pilot error is a significant factor in most private plane accidents, and those errors are often the result of breaking the rules.
- The brain is capable of so much more than we give it credit for. I once read that a lone pilot, flying a challenging instrument approach, expends seven times the mental effort of a surgeon during an operation. I don’t know whether that’s true, but one of the reasons I’ve sold my plane is that I no longer fly enough to keep that razor-sharp edge.
- Process is what it’s all about. We use procedures, checklists, and innumerable other routines. If you don’t like to use that stuff, you shouldn’t fly.
- Subjectivity and emotion can be very dangerous. We know from accident reports that pilots can lose situational awareness. At night or in the clouds, you can literally be flying upside down or in a dive without ever realizing it. JFK Jr.’s accident, very close to where I live, unfortunately is only one example of that. Gut feel and instinct will only take you so far. That’s why we are drilled over and over to read and interpret our control panel instruments, not to trust our senses.
What am I going to do without this plane I loved so much? I’d tell you, but it’s a beautiful afternoon in January, so I’m off for a ride on my newly acquired Honda Shadow 750 motorcycle. Vrrooommmm…
By the way, if you see any parallels between what I learned from flying and what you learned about selling, please let us know in a comment. Come on, be part of the conversation…
