Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Newguy - 5/11/2024 03:30
No.
I’m interested.
Here’s what my CFI cousin posted in a FB comment when I soloed:
“…Was always one of my favorite moments as an instructor after a solo! Well here’s the history lesson anyways. I feel like all new pilots should hear it. Back before headsets and radios, instructors would sit in the rear seat and teach students simply by pulling on their shirt and the student would mimic those movements on the stick to fly the plane. No dual controls in those days so there was a lot of trust between instructor and student. Once the student could fly proficiently, the instructor would rip off the back of their student’s shirt signifying that they no longer needed a back seat puppeteer and making it impossible for the instructor to tell them what to do. They were on their own the rest of the flight. Today we continue this tradition by cutting the lower half of the shirt and student and instructor usually sign it and frame it.” |