This week's question has to do with descent clearances and busy air traffic control frequencies:ATC Descent Clearances and Busy Frequencies

I decided to take last week off from writing my Update, and may continue to do them every other week. Every week creeps up on me too fast and every month just isn't often enough for my own taste, so we'll try this for awhile. I'll continue to post new questions, but also at a rate of one every two weeks so I don't get bogged down. I don't know how I got so busy since I retired from United, and I really have no idea how I managed everything when I was flying such a full schedule around the world.

I just returned from Palm Springs where I was interviewed by my friend and TV host Greg Mantell for his show. It was fun and I wound up being in three segments, two of which had absolutely nothing to do with aviation but which were interesting and entertaining, at least for me and hopefully for the audience when it airs. I'll tell you more about all that next week.

This week, however, I want to continue telling you about Courtney, my 25 year old friend from Seattle who decided, upon discovering my book "The World At My Feet" that she, too, was destined to become a pilot. She did something I would do. In fact, she did two somethings I would do.

The first thing she did was immediately start taking flying lessons. She soon encountered the same dilemma every new civilian pilot encounters, unless the new pilot happens to be fabulously wealthy, and that is the prohibitive expense of flying.

One of the most common questions I get is from prospective pilots who do not consider the military an option for one reason or another, but who want to learn to fly: What in the world is one to do when the cost of learning to fly is so exorbitant?

If you've read "The World At My Feet" (if you haven't, see my offer at the bottom) you already know the path I took was innovative but unique to me and not a good solution or even a possible solution for others in this day and age of ultra-intense security.

What I generally suggest to civilian would-be pilots is to attempt to get an airport job and at least get discounted flying lessons, or even free lessons, but sometimes this isn't practical. Courtney did make an attempt at going this route but it just wasn't going to get her where she was going in a timely fashion.

I first met Courtney downtown Seattle when I was there at Boeing's invitation to hear all about their new B-787 earlier this year and we both knew she was already in trouble. She had managed only four flights in a couple of months due to weather and other obstacles and was completely frustrated although intent as ever upon securing her goal, just as I was when I decided I would become an airline pilot and nothing else would do no matter what it took.

I didn't know how to advise her, but she is her own person and came up with a solution I didn't even know existed. I'm writing about her for two reasons: One is that I am extremely proud of her and I want her and others to know it. The second reason is that her example absolutely may be an inspiration to others whether or not becoming a professional pilot is their goal.

When I first started to fly in the early seventies, the vast resources of the Internet weren't here yet. There may have been flight schools, but if there were, I didn't know about them and I doubt they were anything like the expansive flight schools of today even if they did exist. Then there was the female thing--I had trouble right from the start getting most people to take me seriously since the airlines had not yet started hiring women pilots.

It was only a few years before my retirement from United that I started hearing about flight academies. In fact, it was a bellman at our layover hotel in Miami one evening that asked if I could recommend one. His son wanted to attend a flight academy but the price was exorbitant, around $70,000. I was appalled at the price tag and didn't have any suggestions other than it would be far less expensive for his son to take private lessons.

In Courtney's case, she wanted a defined plan. She wanted a plan with a beginning, a middle and an end resulting in her flying professionally in a reasonable amount of time. She started investigating flight schools on her own and the only advice I could offer her was to be absolutely sure, without fail, to get referrals from pilots who had graduated and were now flying commercially.

She did all that while I still fretted about the money because the price was, indeed, going to be around $70,000 and I was pretty sure she didn't have that kind of money lying around. Would she get it from her parents? I didn't know.

However, I do now and the answer just never occurred to me. These flight schools will assist in obtaining a student loan. If Courtney had asked for a regular loan at her bank I feel quite certain she would have been denied. However, a student loan is something else entirely and it just never occurred to me one could be had for the purpose of learning to fly, but it can, and she went and got the loan she needed.

This is the second "something" I referred to earlier. Courtney took the bull by the horns, did what she needed to do and started flight school yesterday, September 25th, 2006 at the Delta Connection Academy (owned by Delta Airlines) near Orlando, Florida. Although she realizes the gravity of taking out a loan for tens of thousands of dollars, at the same time she doesn't seem terribly intimidated by the prospect of flying professionally and paying back the loan.

Courtney first wrote to me of her intentions to become a pilot on April 12th of this year. You can see her letter to me, if you missed it, in my last Update here: www.fromthecockpit.com/Blogg.

Now, not even six months later, the entire course of her life has changed and she has taken a defining step toward her goal--a good example for anyone to follow who has a burning desire to attain something that at times may seem out of reach.

Courtney was breathless telling me all about her first day of school when we spoke on the phone last evening. She's meeting people from all over the world and in fact her roommate is a 19 yearold girl from India who just flew home to celebrate Ramadan.

You;ll find Courtney with her roommate and new friend Khalida here in my Sky Ladies Album. They're both wearing the blue school student pilot uniform: http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=4

So what in the world do the Chinese have to do with this Update? Courtney told me there is a large contingent of Chinese pilots sent by one of the Chinese airlines to learn how to fly at the Delta Connection Academy. These pilots' expenses are completely paid for by their prospective airline and when they're done with school, many apparently don't see the need to take their flight bag and/or books back to China with them. Courtney discovered this and bought the supplies she needed from some of them for around $250 instead of the thousand dollars or so she would have spent otherwise.

You see? A true pilot at heart. We always know where the best deals are.
Courtney has not only my own best wishes for her success, but that of her supportive parents and the thousands of readers who regularly receive this newsletter. Happy flying, Courtney!