Flight instructor's 'what-if' method shaped a pilot's training

A pilot recalls the instructor who taught him to fly in the early 1970s, and the habits that outlasted the training itself.

Lyle Hamel called unexpectedly one day, decades after he had taught the author to fly. He was 97. More than 35 years had passed since the instruction, and he still remembered his former student.

By the summer of 1972 the author had logged roughly 175 hours of flight time. Close to 60 of them were spent alongside Hamel in a 1957 straight-tail Cessna 150 that Hamel had sold to the family. Flying was a passion for Hamel, who made his living teaching music, specialising in woodwinds. He was patient, calm and meticulous, and never raised his voice, but missed nothing, the account says.

Before each flight he asked for the flight bag and then for the flashlight, wanting proof the batteries worked even on bright summer mornings. The checklist followed. When told it had been memorised, he would ask where it was. Memorising a checklist was not the same as using one, he insisted, and there were no exceptions.

The lessons went beyond the routine. Hamel took his student through rain showers so he would know what to expect if he met them unexpectedly, and taught soft-field landings. The distinction the author draws is that most instructors teach students to pass a check ride, while Hamel taught them to survive.