Multi tasking- Flight on 1-28-12

I've always been of the opinion that most men don't multi-task well. I always believed my husband had a hard time with multi-tasking. My evidence came from observing him at home. It seemed as if it were impossible for him to send a text and answer a question from our two year old. Many times I'm unloading the dishwasher, on the phone, and supervising our wannabe pilot. I thought it was something that came as second nature for me and not him. Well, I was kind of wrong. I hate when that happens, just ask Shane. My wrongs can be a very pleasurable for him, and I guess I'm ok if he savors it a bit. How does this relate to flying? Ok, so I rambled a bit too long.

Earlier this week Shane and I did some ground work at home. Ground work being the principals, rules, and other knowledge needed for learning to fly. Let's face it, the boring but important stuff. I was kind of dreading this part, but it turned out not to be quite as bad as I thought. I have a pretty great teacher who happens to have a wealth of experience. Anyways, he started talking about how we would start to use the rudder in flight. It made perfect sense, but I didn't really think about how much of impact it would have on me when I was flying.

Fast forward to yesterday which was our fourth flight together. We went through the the preflight (well Shane took care of it yesterday), checklists, and started taxing to the runway. We made friends with five turkeys on our way to the part of the runway where we needed to turn around, and finished our checklist. It was finally time to take off so we went through what we needed to do and started off. There was a bit of a crosswind so Shane was more hands on during this takeoff. And soon we were up in the air.

This flight we practiced turns and flying to a heading, which I'm getting pretty comfy with. We also did a little slow flight as well as some descents and climbs. If you know me you know that I can be a bit of a perfectionist. The perfectionist in me can get in the way when I'm flying to a heading. I make my turn and shallow out, and if I'm not exactly on the heading mark it drives me insanely crazy. It really takes all my concentration to take care of this task, and then of course Shane throws in the rudder. The rudder helps to turn the airplane more smoothly and efficiently. Sounds easy enough, except now I have to add my feet while using the yoke. That's manageable enough but I also have to keep my eyes on three different gauges. All the while be constantly assessing what I need to do next to get to the heading. Slowly but surely I started to get it, but all that multi-tasking had me pretty wound up by the end of the flight.

That flight left me with questions about the male race, and gave me a whole new appreciation for Shane. Here's a guy who multi-tasking might not come easy for, but he's overcome it in the airplane. And not only that he can fly up to four different jets in one week. Google the cockpit of a Cessna 172 (what I'm learning to fly in) and the cockpit of a Lear jet (one of the jets Shane flies), and you'll have a better understanding of what I'm talking about. Here's my question, are men really good multi-taskers and just keeping it under wraps? The aviation field is totally dominated by men (poor multi-taskers????) and women (strong multi-taskers) are rare. That makes no sense to me! My last thought is what would happen if women started showing more of a presence in aviation? Just a little something to think about.