Beyond your comfort zone

Although he would be flying with a group of pilots, he’d be flying the slowest airplane in the pack—an Aeronca Champ—into unfamiliar territory that crossed two mountain ranges on the longest cross-country he had ever flown to that point.

The night before departure, he didn’t feel ready.

Bobby Sykes had mostly flown in the Midwest after earning his private pilot certificate. For his dual instrument and commercial long cross-countries he planned an ambitious day trip from Ohio to Maine and back in a Piper Cherokee 180 with his instructor and mentor.

Without any mountain flying or long cross-country flight planning experience, how would he perform?

Two pilots training in two different environments, operating two different aircraft developed similar strategies for flying to unfamiliar locations that pilots in Alaska and the lower 48 can use to overcome feelings of intimidation and break out of their comfort zones.

Mentor pilot or instructor

Gerwig confided his insecurities in his mentor, Dwayne King.

“Dwayne looked at me and said, ‘Joe, if I didn’t think you were ready, I wouldn’t have asked you,’” Gerwig recalled. King had invited him to fly with the group, piloting the Champ with a student pilot on board.

“The whole trip was daunting for me,” said Gerwig, who was just 17 years old at the time. But King’s vote of confidence gave him the courage to tackle the flight one leg at a time. During each leg, Gerwig became separated from the group because of the Champ’s slower speed compared to the other aircraft, and he wasn’t able to maintain radio contact with them. He relied on his knowledge, piloting with a paper chart and finding prominent landmarks to navigate by, such as the James W. Dalton Highway and Alaska pipeline, once he was north of Fairbanks.

The perspective of an experienced mentor is invaluable whether it be to go along on a new adventure or for an objective evaluation of your planned flight, aircraft, and skill level. “When in doubt, ask your mentor,” Sykes recommends.

During their flight to Maine and back, Sykes’ instructor let him do all the planning and corrected his aeronautical decision making en route, providing real-world explanations as they encountered situations.

“I learned more from that trip of what not to do than what to do,” Sykes said, such as flying along roads or airport to airport over mountainous terrain versus flying direct and not planning to take off or land in a valley during potential fog times. The flight also taught Sykes about long-distance fuel and performance planning, risk stacking, and decision making—all elements that he now pays particular attention to on every flight.Be as prepared as you feel you can be on the information side of things, then go do it.

Stepping stones

For Gerwig, “all my other long cross-countries built on that” confidence-boosting flight to the Brooks Range. Since then, he’s flown through Canada eight times and across the Lower 48 from South Carolina to Montana. Each time he learns something new, and he applies that to his future flights.

Gerwig’s first flight through Canada in a Zenith Zodiac CH 601XL taught him about international flight planning and clearing customs. But he also learned that the airport information available for some remote fields is slim. Fuel might be reported as available, but a sparse airport diagram might not depict the fuel farm or terminal, if there is one. Gerwig maneuvers so that he flies over the airport environment before entering the downwind leg. This allows him to observe the taxiways and runway, fuel farm location, and FBO (if there is one), so that he has a mental picture of where to go once he lands.

Sykes also uses a stepping stone approach to build up to more advanced flights. After learning long cross-country flight planning, crossing mountainous terrain at different times of day, and earning his instrument rating, he felt confident and proficient to add the complexity of flying in busy Class B airspace by going to New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport (TEB) in 2024. He flew a better equipped, high-performance Cirrus SR22 and flew to the airport in visual meteorological conditions, becoming acquainted with New York City’s rapid-fire air traffic controllers.

When he visited again, he had to mitigate the risks of thunderstorms over the mountains, timing flying at altitude without supplemental oxygen, and icing conditions. He quickly mitigated all three risks by requesting to deviate around the storms and descend to a lower altitude to prevent icing and hypoxia even though that would put him in solid IMC until breaking out at 500 feet on the approach.

Preflight preparation

Sykes had thoroughly briefed the approach into Teterboro, and his extensive preflight planning helped him anticipate nearly every risk that he encountered so that he stayed ahead of his Cirrus SR22.

He studied the airport as well as its approaches and departures, reading FAA publications and watching videos about the procedures. He also listened to the airport’s approach, tower, ground, and clearance delivery frequencies, and watched ADS-B flight tracks in and out of the airport to gain a better understanding of the preferred routes, standard instrument departures, and local procedures. Live ATC and Flightradar24 are two tools he uses regularly. Sykes specifically studies the flight tracks and approaches of other Cirrus SR22s. This allows him to form a mental picture and fly the route in advance.

Sykes hadn’t anticipated controllers keeping him high and fast until the final approach fix, which he reached 30 knots faster than he typically would, but he handled the clearance and experienced the immediate rewards of staying ahead of the airplane, stabilized, and breaking out on glide path at Teterboro. The “extreme confidence boost” helped him make other flights to airports in Class B airspace including Atlanta, Cleveland, and Dallas. Even with that positive experience, Sykes also explained that he could have replied, “Unable,” to the clearance and been vectored around behind a jet. He knows his and his aircraft’s abilities, and is careful not to let air traffic controller take his pilot-in-command decision making from him.

Gerwig also practices thorough preflight planning. “Be as prepared as you feel you can be on the information side of things, then go do it,” he says.

He approached a cross-country in a Cessna 210 from South Carolina to Alaska in a similar way. He would be flying in the most complex airspace he had ever encountered along the East Coast from South Carolina to Maryland, including flying near the Washington, D.C., Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA). In addition, he had little time in a complex aircraft and hadn’t flown much at night (training in the summer in Alaska doesn’t afford night flying options). He studied the airspace and completed the required DC SFRA training. In Maryland, he picked up a flight instructor to fly with him across the country to Montana. This gave him additional training in the complex aircraft, and he had the benefit of an instructor with him as they crossed the Midwest, flying for four hours after dark to their overnight stop in South Dakota.

“Start smaller and then move on to bigger” adventures, Gerwig said. “Fly into new airports. That will all start to build on each other to where you do that 3,500-mile cross-country.” By that point, “not everything is new at once,” he said. “It’s super rewarding.”

Putting it all together

“Don’t be afraid to try new things outside your comfort zone,” Sykes said, without “throwing caution to the wind or being reckless.”

Sykes, now an airplane CFII with a commercial pilot helicopter add-on, and Gerwig, now a CFI and A&P/IA, are building a logbook full of adventures, but they both go about it in a methodical manner, analyzing available information and minimizing risks. They have created a practice, based on learning experiences built as new private pilots with the safety of a CFI or mentor pilot, to expand their comfort zones by adding a few new experience elements on trips.

“Stretch yourself to continue going beyond your comfort zone,” Gerwig said, “instead of always doing the normal.”