I gave my first lesson today. My student was a glider instructor for the academy, so as my flight commander poitned out, “He has more dual given than you do.”

He’s almost done with the program, and flies well which is why they gave him to me. A hundred hours or so instructing in a glider helps.

It’s weird being called sir. Incessantly. The word “sir” showed up at least twice in every sentence. At one point I point I pointed an RJ that was crossing above us because it was a pretty cool view. “Very cool sir,” he said.

I took the controls only once while I had him put foggles on, otherwise he flew quite well. His landings weren’t perfect, but perfectly acceptable.

I was pretty nervous before the flight, and tried hard not to show it. After the flight, the other instructors congratulated me. And then picked me up and me off to the water tank to toss me in. The tank sits out there so that they can throw the cadets in after their first solo. I asked if they’d thrown any other instructors in after their first flight with a student. “No, but you’re the first instructor we’ve ever had with zero hours dual given!” After chucking me in the tank they complained that I didn’t put up much of a fight. I thought about it, but I was worried that I would end up with my head smacked into the pavement considering they had a heck of a time carrying me.

So now I’m an instructor. While I don’t have my flight suit yet, I’ve got my name badge now. It’s got wings, my name and, “INSTRUCTOR PILOT” printed on it. Woohoo.

Last week I did a very silly thing. I was preflighting my plane and had to walk two planes away to dump the fuel sample I got out of the tanks into a safety can on the ramp. When I resumed my preflight activities, the flight commander giving me the flight asked, “What are you doing?” “Uhm. The preflight checklist?” I responded. Then I realized that there was a cadet standing at the other end of the plane staring at me, and that it wasn’t my plane at all. I felt stupid, returned to my plane and didn’t think much about it.

Until yesterday when I passed my acceptance flight. White flight instructors all welcomed me aboard, and then proceeded to make fun of me about preflighting someone else’s plane. The guy whose plane I was preflighting said, “Hey, any time you want to preflight my plane for me…” My flight commander mentioned that he would considering concluding standup briefings with the words, “Berck, go preflight our planes!” And then they established a verb. “Bercking around” which apparently means doing some pointless activity. In any case, it all makes me feel rather welcome– it’s a all done in good fun, and I feel like I belong now.