Winston W. Hickman, Springville, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, October 18th, 2001: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 368 & 369

Page 18

Win ton Hickman training detachment. BEN: Do you remember your first flight up with your instructor? October 181h, 2001 WIN: Yeah, it was mostly just showing me the first time up and he said, "Now, I'm going to do a slow row and so you just keep your feet on the rudder and stick and just follow me through. Don't try to do anything, just follow." And when he did that my feet fell off the rudder. And he says, "It's hard enough to put forward pressure on the stick to keep the nose up when you're doing that; I can't hold you in the airplane with you hanging on the stick." We had to learn to trust our seat belt. You know, that's a different sensation and you're sense is to hang on to something. And so I guess I was hanging on the stick and my feet fell off the rudder. But then after doing that, it wasn't hard to keep my feet on the rudder and not hang onto the stick. But I guess the basic thing was you had to trust the seatbelt and not worry about falling out of the airplane. BEN: Did you ever get motion sickness? WIN: No, I never was bothered with that. When we went up and did my first spin, he explained, "Now, pick out a target, the road or something on the ground, and as we go through the spin, you just count for me. Every time the plane comes around past your target count once, twice ... And when it comes around three times you holler three and then I'll pull out." 17