You Just Got Your Pilot's License - Now What?

Originally published in Sport Aviation magazine, co-authored with Marianne Fox.

Congrats on your new pilot’s license. You’ve finally made it through all the training, the regulations, the weight and balance charts, the late nights studying, the dreaded oral exam, and the medical. You are free to explore your aviation dreams!

If you are like most new pilots you may have some questions about what to do next. A lot of pilots at this stage get stuck in a bit of a rut. Many procedures, like flying the pattern, which used to seem intriguing and challenging, now seem too simple to keep your interest. It’s time to stretch your wings!

On the other hand you don’t have a lot of experience yet. How much is too much for a new pilot? And by the way, do you ever feel like maybe you might not have what it takes to “truly” be a pilot? This is called “impostor syndrome” and it affects many people who achieve success. Many doctors, lawyers, and famous artists feel that same way.

In this article I will be sharing some ideas on what you can do with a new pilot’s license. Since it’s been a while since I’ve been new at this I’ll be ably assisted by freshly minted new pilot (and my sweetheart), Marianne Fox.

The $100 Hamburger

Ok I’m starting off with this one because it is the most obvious. The $100 Hamburger trip is the one you take just for the purposes of getting a burger at a nearby fly-in restaurant. This is a great next step for you after getting comfortable leaving the pattern, and you can take a friend along, so why not?

Marianne: This one is easy for us because we have a fantastic restaurant that is about a 20 minute flight away. Another great restaurant we like is on the coast, reachable in about 30 minutes. They have a courtesy car at the airport so we can get there, have lunch, and be back in a couple of hours. My airplane is cheap to run so it’s only a $50 hamburger for me.

Tailwheel Endorsement

I’m of the opinion that almost all of the really cool airplanes are taildraggers. The EAA has three divisions: Vintage, Warbirds, and Aerobatic. Guess what those aircraft usually have in common? Tailwheels! You got your license so you can be one of the cool people. Learn to fly the cool airplanes.

New pilots are always worried about whether or not they will be able to land a taildragger safely. Let me tell you it’s not as hard as people make it out to be. Pilots are a funny bunch in that they like to talk about how hard things are because it makes them seem special. Keep in mind that many people ages ago did all of their primary training in a taildragger. If they could do it, you can too!

Marianne: I don’t have my tailwheel endorsement yet but I’ve steered some taildraggers on the ground and I think I’ll add this to my license at some point. One of my favorite planes is the Great Lakes so it would be fun to get to fly one of those some day. Let’s face it - most of the cool planes are tail draggers!

(Safely) Expand Your Weather Limits

You learned about weather when you studied for your pilot’s test but in the real world it is more than an academic concern. I would never argue that you should push yourself to fly in conditions that are not safe. In fact, VFR into IMC, as it is called, is one of the most frequent causes of fatality accidents.

Still, there are a lot of new pilots who have their limits set by fear more than reality. Where we live in Oregon for about six months each year we can either fly in the rain or not fly at all. As long as there is no convective activity and no chance of icing it’s safe to fly through a rain shower. I would draw the line at any precipitation that you can’t easily see through and do not even think of entering a cloud unless you have an instrument rating.

Where I live there are a lot of mountains. If there is an overcast layer I have two choices: go on top or go beneath the layer. Beneath the layer always feels safer even though the granite is a lot closer. The problem with being on top is you can get stuck up there looking for a hole to let yourself back down. I don’t go on top unless I’m really sure I won’t be in that predicament. In general, it’s ok to fly on cloudy days as long as you account for the possibility of changing conditions. When you add heavy (or even medium) precipitation, convection, turbulence, icing, or poor ground visibility to the mix, that’s a good reason to wait for another day. Keep in mind that sometimes the METAR doesn’t tell the whole story. Sometimes you have to go take a look with your own eyes to see what the conditions at altitude are really like. It’s fine to do that as long as you remember to turn around if the situation doesn’t look promising. Don’t be in a hurry. As they say: time to spare, go by air!

Wind can be scary to new pilots. Wind can make take-off and landing difficult and can create nasty turbulence. You learned about these things during your pilot training, so apply your knowledge and set reasonable limits. Keep practicing your crosswind take-off and landing techniques so you are ready if the wind changes while you are en route to an unfamiliar airport. When I first started flying I tried very hard to find airports with perpendicular runways so I’d never be forced into a crosswind landing. I’ve practiced enough now that I feel comfortable flying in wind conditions that would have made my eyes water years ago. Always have compassion for yourself as you learn. What seems hard today will be easy later on. There is no rush.

Marianne: Jim took me up before I had even soloed and showed me how we could fly through a small rain shower and above the clouds. I also think I would like to do some IFR training at some point. I don’t know that I necessarily want to spend the time or money to get that rating but having some time with an instructor would be a wise choice given the climate where I live. I would say weather continues to be the variable that makes me the most nervous and that I’m still learning to judge the most as a new pilot.

Get an Add-on Rating

Your instructor probably told you about the Flight Review that you must schedule every two years. But did you know that if you add a new rating this will qualify in lieu of a review? A rating takes a lot longer than a review, granted, but I think the extra time is put to good use.

This year when my review was due I added a glider rating to my license and I couldn’t be happier about it. What I liked about the glider rating is I was able to take some time off, get away from the cold damp winter, and hang out in sunny Arizona for a week of excitement learning something new. If you haven’t flown a glider, please do it. It will make you a better pilot and it’s also a lot of fun. It’s a strange experience at first because it is so quiet. I fell in love with it!

I do not have my seaplane rating yet but I’ve flown a seaplane a bit and it was great. I think I’ll do that rating next.

Marianne: I’m not sure either of these are for me but I have two years before I need a flight review so maybe I’ll be ready to try gliders or seaplanes by then. It seems like flying a sea plane up in Alaska would be an amazing adventure! I’m sure I could twist my dad’s arm to go with me since he is a life long avid fisherman and loves Alaska!

Plan a Long Cross Country

A new pilot might think a “long” cross country is about 100 miles, but let’s go bigger. You got your pilot’s license so you can go places, right? Let’s set your goals at 500 miles, then 1,000. The trick to approaching these longer trips is to imagine them in bite-sized pieces. If it seems downright crazy to go somewhere so far away, talk some sense into yourself. Remember that everywhere you land, no matter how distant and exotic it feels to you, is someone else’s home airport.

During pilot training almost all of your flying was within a few miles of your home airport. You knew the pattern direction, you knew the elevation, you knew the runway numbers, you knew the runway lengths, you knew where that certain silo or water tower was, you even recognized the voices on the radio. When it came time for the long cross country you put in a lot of preparation. Going somewhere new was a BIG DEAL. Maybe we make it such a BIG DEAL that it feels less approachable than it should. Being a pilot means experiencing a lot of things for the first time. That’s what adventure is!

It’s important to plan your cross country but as you do more of them you’ll start trimming down the list of things you feel you need to prepare for. Work yourself up to a long trip at your own pace.

When you leave your home and venture out in the real world it’s easy to get confused. You might wonder if you will make a mistake. Yes. You will. We all make mistakes when we are introduced to new things. Don’t let that stop you. Just stay in control of the aircraft at all times. Don’t worry about it if you forget perfect radio phraseology or if you get a bit turned around looking for an airport. We’ve all been there.

Marianne: My dream is to take the Aerobat down to visit some friends who live in Southern California. That’s a 700+ nm trip from where I live. I calculated this will take AT 10 hours of flying in the Aerobat. But I don’t mind because I like flying my plane. I’ve been practicing by flying into some unfamiliar airports and I know the route I will take.

Learn Everything About Your Plane

If you had a good instructor they showed you everything in the Pilot’s Operating Handbook that you needed to know to pass the check ride. If you rent your airplane the important information in the POH is probably indicated by dog ears, highlighters, arrows, circles, and the print is probably almost worn off to boot. Great. You can find the test answers, but have you ever read the POH? It’s not a bad idea to do that!

I know a lot of pilots with fancy panels who do not know their planes very well. I bet with some of them if I got in the passenger seat and just starting pushing buttons they’d have a heck of a time figuring out how to restore their gizmos to their default state. Prepare for that scenario. Passengers do silly things sometimes.

While we are on the topic of passengers, can you give an adequate briefing to a passenger? What can they touch? What is off limits? What if they need to get out of the airplane in a hurry? Is there an emergency release? Sometimes pilots seem worried that their passengers will get nervous if they hear about all the things that can go wrong but it’s actually pretty calming to be given information about how emergencies can be handled. The more you know about your plane the better your passengers will think you are at this.

If you have a complicated plane like a Cirrus there are probably a dozen extra instruction manuals you can study. Do that. Get to know everything about your plane. What PSI do the tires need? Can you take the cowl off and put it back on again by yourself? Is there a way to start it from ground-based power if the battery dies? I can tell you from experience that getting stranded is no fun, so prepare yourself for mechanical problems now.

Marianne: My 1972 Cessna 150L Aerobat is fairly simple but it’s still good to know how things work. Shortly after buying it one of the valves got stuck and we had to have the entire engine replaced. I was lucky enough to have a mechanic who showed me the inner workings while he had things pulled apart. Even though I wouldn’t consider myself mechanically minded I think it’s important to at least know the basics of how everything operates.

Get Spin Training

This is my favorite one because I think aerobatics is the greatest thing you can do with an airplane and the first step to learning aerobatics is to learn how to spin! While inadvertent spins are deadly, intentional spins are easy to learn, exhilarating to fly, and perfectly safe in a controlled environment. I’ve lost track of how many spins I’ve done in my aviation journey but it is probably very near a thousand including all varieties of upright, inverted, crossover, flat, accelerated, and knife edge spins.

If you have any anxiety about losing control of your plane, spin training is the trick. Once you learn that the plane is obeying some very simple rules during a spin they aren’t scary anymore. Your confidence will go up if you learn how to fly into and out of spins in a precise way. Maybe you’ll even fall in love with the precision aspects of spin training enough to become a competition pilot like me. I hope so because it is a lot of fun.

A good Emergency Maneuver Training (EMT) school can get you ready to fly spins and basic aerobatics while also teaching you what to do if you have a stuck control or some other dire situation during flight. I’m a big believer in this sort of thing. There is always someone who points out that the training itself adds some risk. This is true, but I think we owe it to our passengers to be very good at what we do.

Marianne: I went up to practice power on stalls just after I soloed and I managed to inadvertently initiate a spin. That’s probably the most scared I’ve ever been. I had nightmares every night for a week. Finally, I went up with Jim and he helped me see how I got in that situation and how a new pilot’s natural instincts can work against them. I felt so much better! I definitely want to continue in my spin training since they still make me nervous.

Attend a Fly-in

There are hundreds of fly-in events in the US each year, ranging from the low-key “pancake breakfast” to the greatest annual flying celebration on earth, EAA’s Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Fly-ins usually have special Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) posted to guide aircraft. It’s very important you read the procedures because they might announce runway closures, changes to the pattern, temporary frequencies, or other important information. If it is your first time arriving at a fly-in it helps to have someone in the airplane who has been there before. Ideally you have one pilot on the controls and another to handle communications and help spot other aircraft.

There are a lot of things that can happen at a fly-in. Sometimes there are games like the “flour bomb” where competitors try to drop a bag of flour on a target. Sometimes there are seminars. Sometimes there is an air show. There is usually food. There might be camping. At a small fly-in it might just be little more than a picnic. Whatever the events a fly-in is the perfect place to meet people like yourself who love talking about airplanes.

Marianne: Jim and I never miss Airventure. I would like to fly in there someday with my own plane, but I think I’ll try some smaller events first. Arriving at Oshkosh during Airventure is a bit too intimidating for me at the moment.

Wrap Up

Ok, pilot, I hope we’ve given you some new ideas about how to take the next steps in your aviation journey. There are a billion other ways to enjoy aviation and none of them are wrong. Enjoy fulfilling your personal dreams!