Happy Fathers Day.

To celebrate Fathers Day, I want to share what I learned from my Father. He soloed in gliders at 15 and has accumulated a lot of hours since then. I bounced around with instructors before I soloed at 14, but I did my most of my power instructing with him in the family Cessna 180, and later in my Cessna 140 I rebuilt.

Smooth

Being smooth on the controls. When my brother and I practice for airshows, one of us ends up also being a safety pilot for our Dad, and he still kicks our butt. Even if we are more current and practicing daily, he always stays smoother and makes the Grob maintain the energy better then both of us.

Be surprised when the rope doesn’t break

You should be surprised when the rope doesn’t break. You should be surprised when it goes right. I remember when I was a kid, going to a dirt strip where he was going to test fly an airplane, a friend had been rebuilding for many years. Things did not go as planned, and I watched him fly the airplane all the way into the crash, where he walked away after testing the safety harness. You cannot be surprised when things don’t go as planned. You need to have a plan before it happens.

This paid off when I had my own engine failure on departure. I was already turning when the engine quit, because I knew heading away from the airport was not the place to be going. Also for the countless times I have had rope breaks, rides pull the release, towplanes have engine failures, etc.

Looking outside

Always paying attention. Always have a plan all the time. Where would you go now? While you are ridge soaring, where you go? When thermalling always looking at where you could go. Even if you can make it home think about what would happen if I hit a lot of sink and couldn’t make it back. What if the next flight I am lower in the same place where would I go? Looking at all of the fields and figuring out how I would get into each and every field below.

Having a plan

Always looking outside, always having a plan on where to go. In an airplane in cruise always looking out and knowing where you are. If the engine quit now, where would you go? Remember that sometimes the best place is a place you already past. Continually thinking about what your options are and where would you go.

Low-level flying always having a plan of where to go and never being surprised. Not just if the engine quit but always having a plan. Know where you are going and have a plan of what you are going to do.

ACD-57

AIR Control Display is a newly designed multi-function display. It controls aircraft radios, is a fully certified altimeter, and controls transponders. Air Control Display works well with many aircraft radios and Mode–S/ADS–B transponders.

AIR Control Display is a fully ETSO certified primary altimeter. You can use the display “standalone” as an easy to read altimeter with really large numbers and perfect reliability, especially in high vibration environments like helicopters, old powered aircraft, or self–launching motorgliders.

If space is an issue, you can use the altimeter function in parallel to COM, XPDR, or both. This not only saves you one entire instrument worth of panel space, but it also offers better readability and reliability compared to most mechanical altimeter systems.

Banner photo credit www.f1gp.com.au

 Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.