AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

I never would have thought flight training would help me on the ski slopes. But when Scott Edison, an instructor at Moonlight Basin in Big Sky, Mont., started teaching me how to adjust my bodyweight and bend my knees going into and out of turns, my mind immediately associated the task with S-turns.

We didn’t have a whiteboard session; instead, he drew the turns in the snow with his ski pole and walked through them bending and straightening his knees as he flowed through the “maneuver.” I couldn’t help but think of how I walk students through S-turns, steepening the bank angle while turning downwind and shallowing it going into the wind.

I also couldn’t help but smile at the complimentary, reassuring praise he gave me after each small accomplishment—getting off the magic carpet successfully in the training area, learning to turn and stop, and mastering my first run with him—mirroring the aviation instructor-student relationship.

After one run, he told me I was ready to solo, which stirred up some anxiety…but not as much as my first solo in a Cessna 172 more than a decade ago.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Alyssa Miller, Editors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.