Basics of Flight and Flying in the US

In my Toastmaster project #8 speech "Get comfortable with visual aids," I decided to try to explain the basics of flight to non-flyers. You can find the "Basics of Flight" presentation in PDF format by click the link. I would like to acknowledge that I found the materials I used for the the GIF files, on the Internet. I cannot name specifically any person or organization since I do not have a record of it now. You can search on "Basics Flight" and you might be able to see some of the GIF files I used in the presentation.

Flying has been my hobby for more than 20 years, since my Berkeley office mate took me to the UC Berkeley flying club based at the Oakland airport in the early 80's. I am instrument-rated and have about 600 hours of logged time. See this picture of a Cessna 172 parked in front of the Squadron 2 Flying Club at the RHV (Reid Hillview airport) in San Jose, California.

Flying gives me a real sense of freedom, and viewing the city from being able to fly as a common citizen is unthinkable to my colleagues in Beijing.

Years ago, I took my 8-year-old nephew on a flight. On our flight to North Philadelphia airport from Morristown, New Jersey, I let him handle the yoke, gently going up and down and turning left and right when we had really smooth air.

I told him that the airspace belonged to us commoners, that is, the people, and that the military is just carving out certain pieces in the name of national defense. As long as they don't overdo it, I don't mind. My sister told me not to give such liberal thoughts to my nephew's young mind, as they were living in Taiwan at the time. Very often, I called in to the military airfields for permission to fly over to save time, and I don't remember that I ever got turned down once. It tickles me still that I could do it as simply as that.

I recall one report from the English CCTV program a year ago that showed some Chinese farmer who had assembled his kit plane in the countryside and was the test pilot himself. It was amazing to me. I found the farmer not only talented but definitely courageous. However, the CCTV reporting had a different angle looking at this news, saying that this daring individual had violated some laws. It was not clear exactly what law this farmer violated, since the concept of general aviation and the regulation of airspace are just too new here. I would bet that the Wright brothers would never have had a chance here to do their first powered flight and to open up a new era in human history.

Government and society should guide this positive energy to innovate, and to create new and better things for mankind as a whole. Flying is not rare in the US, but not that common due to the perceived risks in learning to fly and operate an airplane. The last statistic that I remember is that there are about three quarters of a million private pilots registered in the United States. This is about 0.3 percent of the general population. Many pilots belong to this non-profit organization AOPA (Aircraft owners and pilots association).

I like to talk more about non-profit organizations in another posting in the context of modernization of China.