How flying made me who I am

There's been some thoughts about flying that I've wanted to express for some time now, and finally made myself sit down and see if I can articulate it in a way that makes sense- if only to myself. The goals are twofold: to better understand myself, but also to help other folks understand how just taking a few lessons might expand their world and better inform their next steps ... whatever that might be.

Out at the Biggest Little Flight School, Reno/Tahoe International Airport.

Aviation changed me in ways I didn't fully anticipate when I started. When I first met Ron, I didn't understand what he and his fellow Western Airlines pilots were even talking about half the time. So, I went out and took some lessons back in SLC. Then, years later, when he retired, we joined the USAF-CAP (Civil Air Patrol) flying in support of all manner of emergency services, from flying donated organs in the middle of the night to search and rescue, to being the 'target' for an F-16 during an exercise. Then, we were part of a club with several airplanes, and Ron and I flew all over the western U.S. and Canada ... he'd often put me in the left seat and away we'd go. He's an excellent flight instructor and instilled in me a love for aviation that I'll never lose.

Flying up over the crest of the Sierras enroute to make a couple 'laps' around beautiful Lake Tahoe.

I went in expecting to gain a technical skill — how to basically operate an aircraft, read instruments, navigate from point A to point B. What I came away with was something harder to name but easier to recognize: a different way of paying attention to the world.

Pilots call it 'situational awareness', but that phrase undersells it. It's not just "being alert." It's the practice of continuously updating your mental picture of everything relevant — where you are, what's changing, what could go wrong, what your options are — all at once, and all the time. In the cockpit, that means tracking aircraft systems, weather, terrain, fuel, radio calls, and your own mental state simultaneously. You never get to focus on just one thing for long. At first that can be seriously overwhelming. Eventually it becomes a habit of mind that's hard to 'switch off', and honestly, you stop wanting to. In daily life, that same discipline shows up in how I read a room, how I think through problems, how I notice things other people sometimes miss, how I drive a car, how I manage our home. I've become someone who instinctively looks for the whole picture rather than just the piece directly in front of me.

With my husband, Ronald V. Ryan, in front of one of the Reno Composite Squadron, USAF-CAP Cessna 182 aircraft.

Flying also gave me a more honest relationship with pressure. Aviation teaches you pretty quickly that anxiety is real, but it doesn't get a vote on what you do next. When something goes wrong in an aircraft, there's a discipline to it: 'aviate first', then navigate, then communicate. Prioritize. Work the problem. Don't let the feeling of the situation override your thinking about it. That's easier said than done, but with enough practice it becomes reflex. I've noticed it carries over. In tense situations — personal, professional, whatever — I tend to slow down rather than speed up, to get methodical rather than reactive. I don't always get it right, but I recognize now that composure is a skill, not just a personality trait, and it's one you can actually build. An example of where this way of thinking really helped was when I was diagnosed with late stage, triple negative breast cancer and had to figure out what to do next. Make a plan. Work the plan.

With Miles O'Brien in his Cirrus when he came out to Nevada to report on the search for missing aviator, Steve Fossett, in 2007. Miles is a third generation pilot and covers aviation and aerospace.

The self-knowledge piece is more subtle but probably the most lasting. Aviation has a strong culture of debriefing — analyzing what happened, what you did, what you should have done differently — without ego getting in the way. Or at least, that's the way it's supposed to work. In practice, you quickly learn that the cockpit has a way of revealing your learned tendencies under stress: when you cut corners, when you get stubborn, when fatigue starts quietly degrading your judgment before you've noticed it. None of that is comfortable to see in yourself, but seeing it is the whole point. I became more self-aware not because I was looking for personal growth, but because the environment made self-deception 'expensive'. That lesson stuck. I'm better now at recognizing when I'm tired, or overwhelmed, or about to make a decision I'll regret — not because I'm always right, but because I've learned to at least ask the question.

What ties all of this together, I think, is a certain kind of humility. Not the performed kind — not self-deprecation — but a genuine respect for reality. Aviation is brutally indifferent. Weather doesn't negotiate. Physics doesn't make exceptions. You can be confident and well-prepared and still get humbled fast if you stop paying attention or overestimate what you know. That tends to produce a particular orientation toward life: take preparation seriously, trust your training, stay skeptical of overconfidence (especially your own), and be willing to change course when the situation calls for it. Changing your mind isn't weakness. In aviation, it's often what keeps you alive.

Our Grumman Tiger was super fun to fly. We often took our Jack Russell Terrier, Asta, along. She'd lay on the floor in the back until we landed. Then, I'd get her up in my lap, push the canopy back and she'd put her nose out into the slip stream.

I don't bring any of this up to make flying sound more dramatic than it is — most of it is routine, methodical, even boring in the best way. But the training does something to you over time. It shapes how you think more than what you know. And looking back, I think that's the part that has mattered most.

With my friend, Sandy Munns (retired firefighter and USAF-CAP member) in his Beechcraft Sundowner

I'll never quit flying. Even as a student. I want the 'push' to be the best that I can be. And, I hope that if you're looking to find that 'something more' in yourself, you might consider just going out to the airport and taking a couple lessons. You might be amazed at what you learn about yourself.