By Dave Matheny, EAA 184186
This story first appeared in the March 2019 issue of EAA Sport Aviation.
I had my older son, Kevin, in the right seat of my Ercoupe. (This would be my first Ercoupe, the one I had 30 years ago. Kevin was 30 years younger, a mere pup of 22, and he was getting his first exposure to general aviation.) I had carefully chosen the time and conditions for this flight to impress him: a cold winter day in Minnesota with a temperature inversion. It was winter down below, but at about 3,000 feet AGL, we emerged suddenly from the broken cloud layer into sun and 70 degrees. I had planned to surprise him by opening the canopy to let the wonderful, warm breeze in, but we were both amazed by what we saw. We were just above what looked like a blazing white snowfield stretching for 50 miles in every direction, with blue sky above. It was breathtaking. “This is beautiful,” Kevin said, adding immediately that he would have to show Sara, his girlfriend at the time, this incredible view. He then fell silent, realizing that the Ercoupe was a two-seater and only I could show her. I could pretty well read his thoughts: It’s a two-seater so only Dad can show her … I can’t be along … Dad would like me to get excited about aviation, but I’m not going to learn how to fly just to show her this … Dead end.
Having guessed his thoughts, I offered a way out of the topic for him by observing that temperature inversions were fairly rare and almost never lent themselves to matching up with people’s schedules.
Michael
His younger brother, Michael, got his first ride from me in a two-seat Quicksilver MX Sprint. Unfortunately, it was a very hot, humid day. Michael weighed about 255, and I was at about 190. We were ludicrously over gross, and the single-carb Rotax 503 labored valiantly but could only barely get us airborne before we ran out of runway. Rather than doing the intelligent thing and rejecting the takeoff, I chose to keep going and weave between trees at the end of the runway to escape the immediate environs. By applying every scrap of what I had learned about gaining a little bit of height without actually stalling, which in those circumstances would have become a plunge into the ground, I was able to eke out about 120 feet of altitude. All I wanted was to get us safely back on the ground. I couldn’t explain anything to Michael while we were airborne because I didn’t have an intercom. Immediately after landing Michael seemed to have really enjoyed his two-minute ride and was somewhat surprised by my “thank-God-we-made-it” attitude.
For a variety of reasons, I never had the chance to give Michael another ride. He had clearly enjoyed the flight, having had no idea how close we were to a disastrous, abrupt end to it.
Then, about 12 years later, he astonished me by declaring that he was planning to become an airline pilot. I was pleased, naturally, and avoided saying that most of the people I knew of who had followed that career track had begun in their teens or very early 20s. Those early years are also characterized by long, brutal hours and low pay, but then the same can be said of brain surgeons and rocket scientists.
In 2001, after he got his private ticket, Michael was able to give me a ride in one of the Cessna 172s he had trained in. I was delighted, of course. But even then, his enthusiasm had lost its initial sparkle. Probably a lot of people — certainly not me — had told him about the long, brutal hours and low pay that beginners face. And he must have come to the realization on his own that by the time he was ready to move into the captain’s seat, he would also be close to retirement. He quietly abandoned any professional-pilot career and went into graphics. Forgive me for resorting to a euphemism, but Michael lost a two-year battle with cancer in 2012. We only flew together those two times, and the second one was a joy.
Generations
I have only begun to touch on the surface of parent-child relationships in aviation. Looking down the rows of hangars at my new airport, Red Wing Regional (RGK) in Minnesota, I think about the new friends I’ve made there and marvel at the ways that parents have passed aviation on to their offspring.
My friend Mark, who flies a Kitfox, has a son who flies KC-135 tankers.
Then there’s Jim, whose dad taught him to fly in a no-rudder-pedals Ercoupe. He remembers getting angry at his dad for selling the Ercoupe because Jim wasn’t yet big enough to reach the rudder pedals in a conventional airplane. Today he flies a corporate jet (and can reach the rudder pedals just fine).
In what might be the shining example of a parent passing his love for flying on to his children, there’s Sean. Sean, an airline pilot, bought a two-seat Quicksilver MX Sprint in kit form as a project for his daughters, then ages 10 and 12, to build. He then sat back and let them build it, following the instructions carefully. Today he’s flying it around.
Expertise, or Lack Thereof
It’s obvious from the foregoing that I am not an expert at passing a love for aviation on to one’s children. So much so that, during a period when Michael was in remission and a flying buddy suddenly wanted to sell his very nice Quicksilver GT400 for about half of what it was worth, and I urged Michael to buy it so we could go flying together, he just said, “Thanks anyway.”
It’s equally clear that there are lots of people in aviation who are, on evidence, very good at passing their love of flying on to their kids. Writing this makes me sad. Not only because I lost Michael, but because I failed to communicate the true joy of flying to either of my kids. Had I stuck with it, Kevin might have become interested in flying for its own sake, and not just as a way to impress a girlfriend. Michael saw aviation as a career path, and then realized what a long, hard road it would be, and got out of flying entirely.
The key would appear to be to start early, fly them a lot, and make it as enjoyable as possible. Kids have a way of surprising their parents. If you fly them a lot, even if they seem bored, they might just surprise you.
Dave Matheny, EAA 184186, is a private pilot and an FAA ground instructor. He has been flying light aircraft, including ultralights, for 34 years. He can be reached at DaveMatheny3000@yahoo.com. For more from Dave, read his Light Flight column in EAA Sport Aviation every month.