Romi

Petite, beautiful, and intelligent 23-year old Romi is the female student at our flight school. She was taking a long time to solo. Her instructor was continuing to see improvement with each flight, but after 30 hours, he did not feel she could safely go by herself.
“What’s going on with her?” I asked.
“She doesn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation,” he said.
We decided I would fly with her to see if I could help.
“Let’s go out to the practice area,” I suggested to Romi, “and then we’ll come back and do touch-and-goes.”

We lined up at the end of the runway for take-off. The tower gave us clearance. Romi added power and began rolling. At the correct airspeed, she yanked back the stick and the airplane leaped into the air nose-high. It was too high for that close to the ground, so I grabbed the stick and lowered the nose, gained airspeed, then climbed out. At about 500 feet above the ground, I gave the airplane back to her.
“That was terrible,” I said. I thought maybe I made her nervous. She said nothing.

In the practice area, she performed all maneuvers well, holding altitude and airspeed. Her stalls and slow-flight were good. I was encouraged.

Back in the pattern, she prepared for landing. The approach was a little fast, but not outrageous. I waited to see what she would do. The runway got closer. Still too fast. Just above the runway I could tell she was not going to flare, so I grabbed the controls and averted disaster.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“OK. Let’s try it again.”
She added power and headed for the left side of the runway.
“Right rudder! Right rudder!” I said. She did not respond and the airplane continued to the edge of the runway. I pushed the right rudder and straightened the airplane as we took off again.
This was going nowhere.

“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I think I’m afraid of the ground,” she said.
That’s a problem, I thought.

We tried another landing, but it was horrible. She should be much better than this at 30 hours. We called it a day.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked when we were back at the hangar. If I knew, I would fix it. I asked her about her family and why she wanted to fly.

Her father was an important person in Kathmandu. Her sister had gone to Arizona for flight training, and had gotten her license, so there was a little sisterly competition there. Romi had completed all her ground school classes with top grades, and had aced her written tests, so she was smart. She was raised as a city girl, and never drove a car or rode a bicycle. She had not operated any machinery of any kind in her life before flying.

I took her off the schedule and told her to learn to ride a bicycle. If she could master the coordination it takes to stay upright and on the road, it might help her with her flying. Her classmates helped her learn to ride, by holding the bike for her while she got on, and giving her a push to get her started. Bicycles are prevalent here, and there are many people willing to let her borrow one at any time.

I talked with her some more, and agreed to fly with her if there was time at the end of the day. This actually happens a lot, and the students are alert for extra opportunities to fly. Romi, however, never showed up for those times.

The Chief Instructor talked to her about her goals and options, and it looks like Romi is going to look into another career.