Editor’s Note: The following is a one-on-one interview between CFII/MEI and Hawker 800XP pilot Chris Peterson and one of his former students, Addison DeWitt, from his time leading the CTE Aviation program at Liberty Creek High School in Gallatin, Tennessee. Addison recently graduated as salutatorian with her private pilot certificate already in hand after completing her initial pilot training while still in high school.
Chris Peterson: What made you want to get into the school’s aviation/aerospace program in the first place?
Addison DeWitt: Aviation was something I was always interested in. My dad traveled for work, so I was on planes all the time. I didn’t have any pilots in the family or anything, but I flew a lot as a kid. The pilots on the planes were pretty cool, so they would always talk to me if I asked questions or anything like that. As a high school Junior, I was going to sign up for classes with Liberty Creek, and I saw Aerospace was an option, so I signed up. At first, I didn't really see it as a big deal. I didn't know that I was going to end up wanting to go for a career in the field. I needed an elective, and I figured I might just try it out.
Do you remember seeing the Redbird FMX in the lab for the first time? What was your first impression?
I very distinctly remember seeing [the simulator] for the first time because I was shocked at how cool it was! I had never seen anything like it before. It was also my first time getting up close to anything close to a real cockpit, so it was awesome to get to interact with all of that while not just being on a screen.
How many hours would you say you trained on the simulators, and in what areas did you spend the most time practicing?
We had a couple of weeks where we were just training every day, and that's about an hour and half a day. In total, I’d say it was maybe 40 hours or so. It's hard to put an exact number on it, but I know I was on them a lot and got very comfortable with them. As soon as I kind of figured out that I wanted to get serious about [aviation], I spent a lot of time working through emergency procedures (and other things) just to get a feel for what that would be like. It's not not scary to start flight training and fly by yourself. So, that's something that I always wanted to make sure I knew before I really spent a lot of time in an actual plane.
Did Guided Independent Flight Training (GIFT) help you learn and prepare for actually flying the real plane taking your checkride?
Oh, I would definitely say yes. I mean, getting there and just already knowing the flow of some things before actually having to fly was definitely helpful. It's important to get that feel for how to do something, and then when you get there, you’re just familiar with it, and then you're not as nervous, and everything just ends up going smoother.
What lessons in GIFT helped you the most?
I mean, definitely, like I said earlier, the emergency procedures were helpful, just for nerves and getting familiar with what you would do in those situations. And then also probably the crosswind… it's not something you're typically going to be used to. At least when I started flight training, there was not a lot of wind for me. And also just being a private pilot and doing solos, there are certain weather restrictions. So, you don't really have all that much time to practice with crosswinds in an actual plane.
Redbird GIFT has a unique scoring component aligned with the Airman Certification Standards (ACS). Did you find yourself redoing lessons to improve your scores?
I would definitely redo lessons to improve scores. It broke down each part of each maneuver and gave really helpful tips on what I was doing wrong, which allowed me to go back and fix everything next time.
In addition to the FMX, the school has a Redbird Xwind (crosswind simulator). How did the crosswind trainer help, and is it similar to flying a real plane in crosswinds?
Oh, I would absolutely say yes, it’s similar, because you get to get the feel for all different amounts and directions of wind. If your real flight training is focused around one airport, you may often have the same general winds from the same direction, and so you don't really get practice with, ‘what if it’s coming from the other side, or what if it's this strong,’ and then you get the feel for it. It allows you to experience up to 30 knots of crosswind, so it is nice to practice it in the sim and not in the airplane at first.
Are there differences between the feel of the winds in the Xwind and the FMX?
I guess one of the main differences for me is that the Xwind trainer keeps you on glide path the whole time. So just being able to practice it on the Xwind without having to focus on pitch or even power, really just helped to get the aileron and rudder input idea more in my brain. I know that when I was in the FMX, if I would try to do crosswind approaches a lot of times, I would get too focused on the crosswind, and then I wouldn't be paying as much attention to my pitch, and I found I wasn’t descending or ascending fast enough.
When you got into the real airplane during your flight training at Jet Access, how did it feel compared to the Redbird FMX at school?
It was more similar than I had thought. It was also easier, which I've been told before, but it was kind of hard to believe. Like, what do you mean a simulator is going to be harder to fly than the actual plane? But it was. I felt very familiar with the real airplane. Thanks to the work we did in the classroom and the sims, that gave me a lot of useful skills, specifically the communication side of it—being able to communicate along with, you know, flying the plane straight level, maneuvering, or just following the flight plan. Having all that experience made a huge difference when actually starting my training, and it helped to move it a lot smoother.
How did you do in your first few flights in the real airplane?
One thing that I realized very quickly in those first few flights was that flying is not only just knowing how to fly but knowing the airplane itself—knowing what the flaps are, where the trim is and what it’s used for, and being able to kind of locate those in the airplane. I mean, it was just like a starter that gave me a little bit of a bonus. But that, along with, like I mentioned, the communication aspect, just knowing kind of how to talk on comms and being confident with that—and I can definitely get very nervous if it's something that I have no clue how to do—I felt like I already knew what I was doing and I wasn’t going to freak out too much about it when [the flight instructor] passed over the flight controls.
Let’s talk about trim. Did the trim wheel in the FMX help you trim the real airplane correctly right away?
It definitely set a foundation for knowing that I need to do it. It was a little different in the plane just because there is a lot more force that you have to use to pick up on the control wheel versus in the FMX. I think that was one of the main differences. But getting in the plane for the first time and feeling that pressure made me kind of realize what they were talking about when they were saying to make sure to trim out your plane. It became a lot more useful the second I stepped into a plane.
How was learning ground reference maneuvers using GIFT in the FMX compared to flying them in the real airplane?
It was definitely a little different seeing it on the screens as you don't have the same depth perception in a simulator as you do when you're flying 1,000 feet off the ground. But it definitely showed me the process of it, gave me the feel of it, and got me more comfortable with it when I actually was practicing the maneuvers using an actual reference on the ground.
What did your instructor say about your first few flights?
Yeah, this is something I mentioned earlier, but it was definitely being able to communicate. That's something I guess a lot of student pilots don't come with knowledge of how to do. But I was prepared. I knew what to say, and I knew the order of how to say it. And I could do that while maintaining the instruments, maintaining straight and level flight—things like that—that usually student pilots don't pick up on as quickly. He was definitely a little surprised, and it was something a little different where I knew the responsibility that I had; and I knew the plane; and I knew what to do with it to get it where I wanted it.
It sounds like communication was a key element to your learning to fly quickly.
Just being able to know what I want to say and feel confident enough to say it helped, because when I was in training, I was a new student, and there were people who were a week or a couple of weeks from their checkride. They still weren't confident on comms and didn't really know what to say. It was definitely helpful, and it helped save me from a lot of embarrassment.
As you progressed through flight training, did you go back to the simulators, and if so, what did you work on?
I did! I spent a lot of time after I had already started training working on crosswinds because they do feel more extreme in an actual plane. It’s something I wanted to get more confident in as soon as I started actually training.
How realistic was the simulator compared to the real airplane?
Everything in the cockpit was definitely realistic, especially the instrument scan. One of the things that was a little different was just being able to fly VFR. In the plane, my instructor had to turn off the cockpit lighting occasionally or dim the screens (Garmin G3X) because I would spend too much time looking at the instruments because, in the sim, you don't have a lot of actual ground reference compared to the real world. So, that was something that was a little different, but pretty much everything else was very scarily accurate. You've got the controls and the procedures for stalls, emergencies—those kinds of things all stayed the same. The radios were the same too. It was definitely helpful. I know that's something we did on my final… where I was trying to switch frequencies and communicate while also making a turn and redirecting to my new checkpoint.
Do you think that it would have taken you longer to get your PPL if you hadn’t flown in the simulator first?
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, there's not too much more I can say about that. I’m a big fan of the simulators. I’ve seen research done on it, and I know it works for me, so it's kind of hard to argue otherwise on that one.
When you used the headset in the simulator with the teacher acting as ATC, did it raise the level of realism, and if so, how?
I mean, absolutely. You have that feeling of someone actually being on the other end, listening to what you're saying, trying to process what you're saying, and use what you're saying. It made it a very realistic experience, and it almost completely transferred to actual flying and communication.
What would you say to students new to the simulator?
Well, something that I definitely noticed when I was a teacher’s assistant during the Senior Project in the aviation class was that a lot of people would take it for granted. A lot of people just see it as something fun they can do because it is pretty cool to go out and try and fly on sims. They really don't realize the weight of it and how important those lessons are, especially if you're planning on going into flight in the future. So, I would just want people to make sure that they know how important it is and know how useful that experience is to them. So, it’s not something that they should take lightly or say, 'this will never happen' or 'I’ll never need to do this,' because they will. Pretty much every single thing I did with Redbird GIFT was something that I practiced heavily throughout training.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Just that becoming a student pilot is hard. There's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of studying, a lot of training, but… people are so, so lucky if they have these resources to help them train before they actually get there. I mean, I know I was also blessed with that same opportunity, and I was able to get that experience. It’s extremely beneficial, and I don't think people appreciate it as much as they should.
What’s next for you?
I’m going to Purdue University to do [the] Pro Flight Program. I’m doing the Degree in Three program, so I’ll graduate in three years, which is only something you can do if you go in with your private pilot license. I will be there for the next three years, and I’ll come out with a degree and a good portion of my licenses and ratings, and then I don't really know from there. I know I'm going to need some way to build hours, whether that's instructing or doing tours or something like that. But then eventually I want to end up at a commercial airline flying international flights hopefully.