{"id":5034,"date":"2018-11-15T13:49:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T21:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=5034"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","slug":"218-more-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/218-more-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"#218 More Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Written in July, 2018<\/p>\n

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In a recent article in the Tailwheeler\u2019s journal, I described with my tongue just a little bit in my cheek, how I\u2019d established a new tradition, that of a CFI peeing on the windsock pole when a student solos.\u00a0Well, it may be that sometimes I crack myself up\u2026 and it may be that I was giggling to myself a bit when I wrote that article, but I have to admit that it was only halfway in jest.\u00a0 I\u2019m a believer in the traditions of aviation, and that\u2019s probably why a fairly insignificant comment really upset me.<\/h3>\n
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Hooper’s shirt tail autographed by his teacher, Dale Masters.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Brian cuts son Hooper\u2019s shirt tail upon Hooper\u2019s solo of a glider<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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It seems that a CFI recently made an entry to a Taylorcraft forum in which he declared that he no longer cut the shirt tails off of newly soloed student pilots.\u00a0 I guess that he felt that tradition was no longer important.<\/h3>\n

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Here\u2019s why I found that comment really upsetting.\u00a0 You see, aviation has a few wonderful traditions.\u00a0In skydiving, as in other pursuits, the first time you do damned near anything, it\u2019s going to cost you a case of beer.\u00a0 And with airplanes and gliders, as well as other categories of aircraft, it\u2019s traditional to cut a shirt tail.\u00a0 Without getting into where the tradition comes from, why is it so important?\u00a0 I think it\u2019s because it\u2019s a touchstone.\u00a0It\u2019s something that every student pilot can aspire to.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you remember the day that your shirttail was cut and maybe you still have that shirt tail, languishing in a drawer somewhere.\u00a0 When I instructed for Outlaw Aviation, we took a picture of each shirt tail, drew a cartoon on it and framed the photo for hanging on the wall in our office.\u00a0 Shirt tails at Carol Walker\u2019s FBO in Texas become works of art.<\/h3>\n
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A shirt tail at Carol Walkers’ FBO in Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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And just as the CFI is not supposed to care about how valuable that shirt was, its value is nothing compared to what the student \u201cpaid\u201d in sweat and concentration, not to mention cash for the moment that it was cut off.\u00a0 If we stop cutting shirt tails, we might as well say that it\u2019s really not worth much that you soloed, certainly not as much as the shirt you were wearing when you did solo.<\/h3>\n

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While his student conducts his first solo, his flight instructor pees on the windsock pole.\u00a0It\u2019s one of my favorite traditions.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So now you see why I think that this tradition is so important?\u00a0 Thanks.\u00a0I feel better, getting that off my chest!<\/h3>\n

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Happy Swooping!<\/h3>\n

Brian<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Written in July, 2018     In a recent article in the Tailwheeler\u2019s journal, I described with my tongue just a little bit in my cheek, how I\u2019d established a new tradition, that of a CFI peeing on the windsock pole when a student solos.\u00a0Well, it may be that sometimes I crack myself up\u2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}