John M. White was kind enough to leave me a comment on this post about G1000 terrain features and barometer setting. He described himself as a “old dog” and after reading his blog and exchanging a couple of e-mails, I realised how much aviation changed over the course of his career. When I proposed to interview him he accepted and I sent him a handful of questions. The first question was to know if I could introduce him as an aviation dinosaur…

Feel free to refer to me as an “aviation dinosaur” – I am what I am.

I first saw a private aircraft at a county fair in Monroe, MI back in the late 50’s.  It was a V-Tail Bonanza and it was on a rotating table.  It was early on a summer evening and I remember the aircraft going around on this rotating table with the red rotating beacon going.

I was hooked!

I had been watching Sky King on our black & white tv, and I just knew I had to get a pilot’s license.

When I graduated from high school I went into the US Air Force and was tagged to be a Russian Language linguist, and was sent first to Syracuse University and then to Goodfellow AFB for some additional training. The air base had a flying club which I promptly joined and which promptly was dissolved.  But by then I had to complete my training.

I went to the local fbo and started out in a Piper PA-22-108 Colt but it was a bear to fly.  It was impossible to flair and it was just uncomfortable as heck to fly.

I went next door to the Cessna dealer and continued on in a Cessna 172. What a great airplane!  My instructor would carry a rolled up newspaper and if my head stopped moving he would smack me.  Forced landings were a blast – we actually landed out in the scrub or on a dirt road!  Great fun!

I finished up my Private at Love Field in Dallas, TX and then promptly shipped out to Shemya Island in Alaska for a year.  Not much flying there.

From there I went to England, and was able to do a little flying at a local flying club – a Cessna 172 again.

I left the Air Force to attend college at Michigan State University which had a very active flying club.  Once again, Cessna 172s and Skyhawks.  I got my Commercial, Instrument and CFI ratings in the club, and then taught a number of people how to fly.

Apparently I was very patient because I got all of the difficult students. At the same time I flew charter in Cessna 310s and Cessna 401s and Beech Baron aircraft at night, instructed on weekends and took classes during the day.

In those days there were still radio ranges around so I had to do a radio range approach for my instrument rating as well.  Flying the A and N legs was interesting, to say the least.  The radios were primitive, some had hand cranks to dial in the frequency you wanted.  Tuning the radios was the most difficult part of the instrument check ride.

I have little experience with glass cockpits, and not much exposure to the newer GPS systems available today.  When I learned to fly IFR you had to keep the terrain and position in your head because you couldn’t see anything and all we had were needle, ball, artificial horizon and airspeed to go by.

I must say that I have had concerns about all of this automation and the new pilots relying so heavily on this equipment.  I think it could be a dangerous situation if all at once the cockpit goes dark and they don’t have any experience with the steam gauges.

I realize that the standby gyros are included in recurrent training, but they are awfully small and I wonder if many pay much attention to them.

I still prefer the “steam gauges” but a combination with a center glass display would really be nice.

I would highly recommend aviation to anyone who loves flying airplanes. Most of the modern conveniences today came from developments in the aviation field, so if you want to be on the leading edge aviation is the place to be!

I also think it is a very rewarding career where you serve others (passengers and your employer) in a unique and extremely responsible position.  It’s not the pay, nor the glory, but the pride one can take in safely transporting passengers who trust their lives to you from point A to point B.

What an awesome job!