Log Books Aren't Just For Entries

A NOSTALGIC LOOK BACK AT AVIATION MEMORIES

- Les Abend

As a requirement for our upcoming flying safari trip in New Zealand, I had to produce evidence of a “type rating” in a Cessna 172. The type rating was part of the qualifications necessary to obtain the equivalent of a Private Pilot license. Although I have flown a C-172 periodically throughout my flying lifetime, I couldn’t find a specific entry until I literally blew the dust off some old logbooks. Even with the research being a bit tedious, I began to embrace the process.

I skimmed the entries of my first logbook, the pages yellowed, the spine starting to separate from the cover. The aviation bug attacked when I was 6 years old, after flying aboard a Lockheed Electra accompanied by a cockpit tour. I received a certificate that entitled me to a pilot interview with my current employer 20 years from the date. But it wasn’t until the age of 15 that I was truly bitten. The first logbook entry was my first lesson, flown in a Cessna 150 at my local airport near Syracuse, New York. I literally broke a piggy bank to make it happen.

After sweeping hangar floors and then earning the minimum wage of $1.85 per hour as a line boy, I finally squirreled away enough money to get me as far as my first solo five months later. My Private Pilot check ride came a little more than a year from solo. I still remember the designated pilot examiner rushing me through the practical test in Seneca Falls, New York. After the check ride, he scrambled out of the airplane within seconds of parking. Surely, I had failed. My career was over before it began.

As I was starting to unbuckle in shame, the DPE ran back to the airplane in a flurry. In his hand was a signed temporary certificate. He pointed at an ominous-looking charcoal sky forming to the west. He shook my hand and said, “Congratulations! Get home before the storm hits!” My grin was wider than my face when I pushed the throttle forward to launch the Cessna 150 homeward.