Apologies in advance for the deluge of words to follow.
It’s been quite some time since I last posted, and I apologize for that. The truth is that I had some pretty big upheavals in my training and I’ve been focused on dealing with them and trying to forge a path forward towards getting my certificate.
Let’s start at the beginning. When I left you last, I had just performed my first unsupervised solo, and my CFI wanted me to get around four hours of solo time before reporting back to him. Our next step was going to be flying our dual cross country flight. Well, I showed up at the airport one day and he took me aside and told me he was no longer able to act as PIC for medical reasons. He wasn’t sure when he would be fit to fly again, but it definitely wouldn’t be for awhile.
This was a pretty big shock — I loved my instructor and I was apprehensive about continuing my training with someone new. At the same time, I wound up joining a local flight club — I hadn’t planned on joining them quite so soon, but as chance would have it a spot opened up on the waitlist and I was in! They had instructors I could train with, but they didn’t have any Cessnas — I would be flying Piper Archers. They also fly out of White Plains (KHPN), which is a much larger and busier airport than Danbury. I wasn’t opposed to training with them, but I sort of retreated back to what was comfortable and decided to take a few more lessons at Danbury while I figured out what to do.
This is where Duke entered my life.
I flew another solo flight on 6/25 and was feeling a little iffy — I was safe and got the plane down OK, but I felt like I needed more practice and my confidence was low since my last flight was all the way back on 6/8. I also needed an instructor to show me how to get to the practice area a bit North of the airport. I got myself on the schedule with a new CFI and hyped myself up — flying with someone new would be good and would teach me new things. This would be a good move!
Well, I showed up at the airport and the guy never showed. I wasted an hour driving back and forth and some more time waiting to see if he was going to come in. I was pissed, and the school knew it. They offered to pair me up with Duke and he was willing to fly with me on the 4th of July. I accepted and showed up to meet Duke on the 4th.
Duke was great — we flew out to the practice area and practiced steep turns and stalls. We flew around a bit and he showed me some landmarks and taught me some things about our surrounding area. I ended that flight feeling pretty good about things, although my landings were crap. Then, I hurt my foot.
I wound up with some weird tendonitis/inflammation in my foot over the holiday weekend, and it kept me from flying for a month. When I returned to the airport on 8/6, I pulled a three hour lesson with Duke. We flew to KPOU and practiced landings, then navigated back to KDXR for some more landings. By the end of the lesson we were both spent. It was a good lesson and I left feeling great about continuing my training with Duke. We made plans for another flight on 8/12 to work on VOR navigation and I shook his hand and went home.
I never saw Duke again.
Tragically, Duke Morasco was killed in a training flight on August 11, 2017. It was a pretty nice day out and Duke was up with a 17-year-old female student with her father riding along as a passenger. They crashed not far from the runway at Candlelight Farms (11N), a grass strip close to Danbury. My wife texted me a news article about the crash while I was at work and I noticed the plane was owned by my flight school. Then I saw the picture of the plane and immediately recognized it as N1727V. I logged into our scheduling application and my worst fears were realized — Duke was the instructor scheduled in that plane that morning.
I was shell-shocked. This was the first death I had encountered up close in aviation, and the fact that it was my instructor in my training plane hit really close to home. I have to admit, I had some doubts about continuing my training after that. I did some soul searching and spoke to some fellow pilots online. I came out of it realizing the risks were exactly the same now as they have been the entire time I’ve been training. It’s scary to think that someone like Duke, a very experienced pilot, could be gone in a flash, but that’s the danger we all accept when we climb into the cockpit. I’m still waiting for more info on what happened during this flight — the armchair quarterbacks seem to think it was a spin stall at low altitude, but nothing official has been said yet. I’m not sure if we’ll ever have any answers. I’ll write more about the feelings I had during the hours following the accident, as I think it’s an important topic for new pilots, but that’s best saved for a separate post.
Here’s I picture I took of N1727V early in my training. You can click on the link above to the news article to see the picture of the plane after the crash.
I attended Duke’s wake and it was very touching. We had to wait in line for over two hours at the funeral home, that’s how many people came out for this man’s wake. Talking to his family and friends confirmed what I already knew — Duke was a great guy, always willing to help everyone around him, and he was a great pilot who was taken from us too soon. One day I’ll write a post with some more about him — I didn’t know him well, but I’m really glad I got to spend as long as I did in the plane with him.
Anyway, this is turning into a novel, so I’ll try and finish up. I started training with my new school and my new instructor. It is very different — we are doing “real world” flying — going to different airports and parking, getting fuel, etc… I’ve done two flights already — one to KPOU and the other to KHVN. Flying in and out of KHPN is a whole new experience — when JetBlue and Delta are sharing an airport with you, you have to up your game!
So, I will be picking up on the blog with my new training experiences going forward. In the near term, I’ll be working on my cross country planning as well as getting checked out to solo in the Piper Archer. It is different flying the Piper, but I really like it so far. Another nice part about flying a club plane as opposed to a school plane — the amenities! I’m getting experience with new avionics and features like autopilot and rudder trim that N1727V didn’t have.
In closing, I’m excited about finishing up my training and getting my certificate. I love my new instructor and the club is full of great pilots I can learn a lot from. The new airport and environment is challenging and I feel like this is pushing me to a new level with my flying. All in all, I feel like I took a couple steps backwards but this will lead to a huge leap forward. I was getting pretty sick of pattern work at Danbury, so it’s nice to actually fly around and get to see some new things.
I’m sorry for the delay in posting, but I needed some time to get my head on straight and figure out how to handle all of this. I’m looking forward to sharing this new chapter in my training with you! It’s fitting that this post comes as I completed the fourth page of my logbook. New page, new adventures. Blue skies!
Updated Totals:
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 4.7 hours
Total flight time to date: 58.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 218
Total landings to date: 214
