Pilots Must Embrace the ‘What-If’ Philosophy

The phone rang unexpectedly one day. The voice on the other end was 97 years old. “Verlyn, how are you doing?” It was Lyle Hamel.

More than 35 years had passed since he had instructed me, yet he still remembered me. That was the kind of person he was. He cared about people long after they left his airplane. Most flight instructors teach students how to pass a check ride. Hamel taught students how to survive.

By the summer of 1972, I had accumulated about 175 hours of flight time. Nearly 60 of those hours had been spent with Lyle sitting beside me in a little 1957 straight-tail Cessna 150 that he had sold to our family.

Lyle earned his living as a music teacher. Woodwinds were his specialty. Flying was his passion. He was patient, calm, and meticulous. In all the years I knew him, I never once heard him raise his voice in anger. But he missed nothing.

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“Open your flight bag,” he would say before a flight. I would comply. “Show me your flashlight.” Even on bright summer mornings he wanted proof that the batteries worked. “You never know when you’ll need it.”

Then came the checklist. If I said I had memorized it, he would smile. “That’s wonderful. Now where is it?” He insisted that memorizing a checklist was not the same as using one. Every flight. No exceptions. There was always another lesson.

One day he took me through rain showers so I would know what to expect if I ever encountered them unexpectedly. Another day he taught me soft-field landings. Then came hand-propping an airplane safely in case a battery failed. He covered the instruments and asked me to tell him their readings from memory. He made me fly under the hood until I could trust instruments more than my senses.

Sometimes I wondered if there was any end to the things he wanted me to learn. Oddly enough, I never grew tired of it. I enjoyed every lesson because each one revealed something I had never considered before.

Looking back, I realize that Lyle wasn’t merely teaching procedures. He was teaching a way of thinking. Every lesson seemed to begin with the same question: What if? What if the battery dies? What if the engine quits? What if visibility suddenly disappears? What if the instruments are all you have left?

One day he summarized his philosophy in a sentence I never forgot: “If you think of every landing as a dead-stick landing, you won’t be surprised when the real emergency occurs.” Lyle believed that real-world emergencies should never be the first time a pilot thinks about an emergency.

Years later, I would discover why.

Lyle had sold our family a well-worn 1957 straight-tail Cessna 150. It wasn’t fast, and it certainly wasn’t fancy, but it became the airplane in which I learned the fundamentals of flying. Looking back, I suspect Lyle missed that little airplane almost as much as he enjoyed teaching in it.

While attending college, I became acquainted with a physician whose daughter was one of my classmates. He had recently purchased a four-seat Cessna 172 and generously allowed me to use it whenever I wished. One day he called and asked if I would fly him and two other doctors to a medical seminar.

I explained that coastal fog was common that time of year and that neither the airplane nor I were instrument rated. If the weather blocked our route, we would have to land and continue by car. He agreed—at least initially. 

As we approached Northern California’s coastal mountains, a solid bank of fog blocked our path. I announced that we needed to land. The doctors disagreed.

Just then another pilot reported over the radio that he had followed a river beneath the fog into Eureka. The doctors immediately seized on the idea. “Just follow the river,” they said.

I knew it wasn’t a good idea. I knew it wasn’t something I had been trained to do. Yet I was young, inexperienced, and sitting beside highly respected physicians. One of them was internationally known in his field. I allowed myself to be persuaded.

It was one of the worst decisions of my flying career.

We found ourselves scud running down a twisting canyon at dangerously low altitude with mountains rising on both sides. There was no safe place to turn around and no margin for error. Eventually we reached our destination, but all day long I worried about the return trip.

Late that afternoon the weather remained poor. This time I was determined not to go. The owner of the airplane had other ideas. “I’ll fly it myself,” he said. The problem was that he was still a student pilot.

Realizing that the situation was becoming even more dangerous, I reluctantly climbed back into the left seat. As we departed, a temporary hole appeared in the fog. The doctor insisted on making the takeoff.

Seconds later, the opening closed. The airplane entered dense fog.

Instantly I watched the attitude indicator show the nose rising and the airplane beginning a banking turn to the left. Without outside references, spatial disorientation was already taking hold.

Then I heard Lyle Hamel’s voice in my memory. I remembered the countless hours under the hood. The unusual-attitude recoveries. The insistence on trusting instruments instead of sensations.

“Let go. I have the airplane.” The doctor released the controls. As I leveled the wings according to the instruments, the three doctors cried out in alarm, convinced that I had lost control of the airplane.

But my eyes stayed on the instruments. Everything in my body wanted to believe what my senses were telling me, but Lyle had taught me that instruments tell the truth while sensations often lie. Within moments I had the airplane under control and descending safely back below the dense fog layer.

That was only one of several close calls before the day finally ended. The instrument lights failed. We became lost at night, narrowly avoided terrain, and I eventually landed at the wrong airport in dense ground fog and found myself explaining the entire ordeal to an FAA controller who I thought was going to pull my license. Instead, he taught me another lesson: When pilots need help, they should ask for it.

Yet when I look back on that long day, one lesson stands above all others. The reason we survived was not luck. It was preparation. It was training.

Lyle Hamel understood something that many new pilots have yet to learn: Emergencies rarely require skills you have never seen before. More often, they require ordinary skills practiced so thoroughly that they can be performed under extraordinary stress. Each time we faced another close call, Lyle’s “What-if?” philosophy helped me recall my training and remain calm enough to deal with the emergency at hand.

I also learned another lesson that day. No matter how accomplished your passengers may be, they are not the pilot in command. Doctors save lives. Lawyers know the law. Business leaders run companies. But none of those accomplishments transfer automatically to aviation.

The pilot bears the responsibility. The pilot makes the decision. And the pilot must sometimes say “no,” even when everyone else says “yes.”

I wish I had learned that second lesson earlier in the day, because several of the day’s dangers began when I surrendered my own judgment. But I never forgot it afterward. Neither did I ever forget Lyle.

Years have passed since those events, yet I still consider that flight instructor one of the most important people in my aviation life. His patience, thoroughness, and insistence on mastering the fundamentals were quietly preparing me for a day neither of us could foresee.

Today, when I think of Lyle, I remember far more than unusual-attitude recoveries and hours under the hood. I remember a teacher whose influence reached further than either of us could have imagined. Before moving to Northern California, he taught my future wife to fly in Southern California. A year later, he taught me in that same airplane (N552E) after it became part of our family. We didn’t discover the connection until after we were married. 

Looking back, it seems fitting. Lyle helped shape both of our aviation journeys long before either of us realized how far his influence would reach. He had taught me how to think ahead, how to prepare for the unexpected, and how to trust training when circumstances turned against me.

One day, those lessons helped bring four people safely home.

FLYING’s I Learned About Flying From That (ILAFFT) features reader-submitted stories about lessons learned from memorable moments in the cockpit. The views and factual assertions expressed in this article are those of the author. Unless expressly stated otherwise, Firecrown Media Inc. has not independently verified the events or factual claims described. To share your story for possible publication, submit ~1,000 words at submissions.firecrown.com and select ILAFFT.

This column first appeared in the August Issue 973 of the FLYING print edition.