There's an unwritten rule in flight instructing nearly as immutable as the physical laws of lift: "Thou shalt not teach a family member to fly."

Flight students want to believe their mentors are infallible Sky Gods.

Photos by BEVERLY PAVONE / Special (ENLARGE)

Dave Hirschman and mother Wilma Melville prepare for a training flight in Santa Paula, Calif., with its relatively short runway.

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Flight instructor Judy Phelps gave Wilma Melville additional training in the plane after her son returned to Atlanta.

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Dave Hirschman, Wilma Melville and Larry Kline, a friend of Melville's, board the RV-10 for a training flight in California.

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Dave Hirschman, John Melville Jr., Wilma Melville, Larry Kline and Ken Ross move the plane toward its hangar shortly after arrival in Santa Paula, Calif.

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Wilma Melville plans to shuttle search dogs and firefighters for her nonprofit.

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The RV-10 is a four-seat, 200 mph plane.

Family members know better.

Spouses, siblings and children have seen us at our misguided, blundering worst. No matter how much we might know about airplanes, it's impossible for them to unquestioningly believe us because they've seen us flounder in virtually all other aspects of our lives.

Despite all that, when my 73-year-old mom called a few months ago to tell me she was renewing her pilot's license after a 22-year hiatus, buying and ferrying an airplane from Oklahoma to her home in California, I jumped at her invitation to come along and teach her to fly it. The new plane — a single-engine, 200 mph hot rod — was a big step for my mom. I wanted to make sure she and her magic carpet got off to a good start.

No matter that Mom had changed my diapers, observed my petulant adolescence, and saw me destroy the clutch in the manual-transmission car she taught me to drive. Surely she could put all that personal history aside during a two-day, cross-country airplane trek.

A dozen or so flying hours together couldn't irreparably harm our relationship.

Could it?

An airplane in our garage

Aviation was off-limits to Mom as she grew up in a blue-collar New Jersey family. Painfully shy, she married at 19, became a teacher, and put her husband, my dad, through medical school. They moved to California in the 1960s and quickly started a family — four sons in five years. I'm No. 2.

Mom first got off the ground in the late 1960s, when my dad told her that he planned to become a private pilot. He had a recurring fantasy of loading his family into an airplane and whisking us away on vacations. Mom, the pragmatist, figured she should learn, too, just to back him up. She got her private pilot's license in 1968.

But Dad never followed through, and Mom put her wings away without ever taking us kids for a flight. My parents divorced a few years later, and Mom went back to work as a public school teacher. As a single parent of four boys, flying was all but forgotten.

Mom remarried in the 1970s — this time to an aerospace engineer — and got interested in flying again. She and my stepdad built a kit airplane in our garage. Its registration number, 76WJ, combined their first initials, Wilma and John, as well as the year they planned to fly: 1976. Their schedule was a bit optimistic, but when they finally got airborne in 1978, they made up for lost time by taking their plane all over the country.

Mom flew. John navigated.

They were married 33 years, until John died of cancer three years ago.

Since John had always been Mom's mechanic, flight planner and biggest fan, I was a bit perplexed when she announced she was taking up flying again. The avocation seemed likely to flood her with memories of her late husband — and make her lonely. But she had founded the nonprofit National Disaster Search Dog Foundation and needed to move rescue dogs and firefighters around the country.

A speedy, powerful plane would allow her to do that herself.

She doesn't get rattled

My brother, Harry, a former Navy fighter pilot, and I, an aerobatic flight instructor, had planned to help Mom select an airplane.

She beat us to it.

Mom found an extremely capable kit plane called an RV-10 and bought it from the builder. Harry's instructor license had lapsed, so Mom asked me to fly with her.

I had ridden with Mom several times as a teen, and my most lasting memory was her coolheaded nature. Mom just didn't get rattled. One night I rode along while she practiced crosswind landings. The wind was howling, and the plane rose and fell on sharp, violent gusts. I thought I was going to be sick, but Mom calmly took off and landed 10 times — just as she had set out to do.

Dutiful son

When we met in Tulsa, Mom was uncharacteristically giddy.

Her new airplane looked perfect inside and out. It had a lustrous new paint job — and the plane carried her foundation's logo and a big black paw print on the tail.

"I thought it would be a great plane," Mom said. "But it's even better than I thought."

True to form, Mom had clear expectations for our upcoming flight. We would buzz around the Tulsa area for a day or two while she got the feel of the airplane, then we'd head west.

I listened as a dutiful son. But it didn't take long to slip into my autocratic flight instructor role. I told her that we were going to fly west from the moment we got in the plane. The fewer takeoffs and landings we made along the way, the better. We'd complete the ferry trip first, then concentrate on flight training later.

Mom doesn't abandon her plans easily, but with some effort, she went along.

'I learn by doing'

Mom's new plane was kept at a narrow asphalt strip in Oklahoma barely wide enough for its landing gear. I made the first takeoff and handed the controls over to her as soon as we were airborne. I liked the smooth, decisive way she handled the plane as I got on the radio to activate our flight plan.

We had a gorgeous day, with blue skies and a few puffy white clouds beneath us. Air traffic control told us to level off at 8,000 feet, and I asked Mom to put the plane on autopilot when we got there.

"I want to get the feel of it," she said. "How about I practice going up and down a few hundred feet?"

We were already on radar, and the controllers were expecting us to stay at our assigned altitude.

"How about you do what I ask you to do," I said with an edge that surprised us both. "Please, just hold 8,000 feet."

I was taking a few notes 12 minutes into our flight when Mom chimed in again.

"Do you want me to just sit here?" she said. "I learn things by doing. Not sitting."

Air traffic control offered to let us fly in a straight line over Amarillo, Texas, but we'd have to climb to 10,000 feet to get the shortcut. I was hesitant, but my feisty mom assured me she could handle the thin air.

"I just had a physical, and the doctor told me my blood oxygen level is excellent," she said. I patted her on the shoulder and told her to climb. She hand flew the plane to 10,000 and engaged the autopilot again.

"I've got raisins and Cheese Nips," she offered, placing a bag of goodies on the console between us. "And if you're good, I've got a special treat."

She opened a plastic container of chocolate chip cookies.

"I'll have a cookie when we cross into Texas," I said.

"I'll have two when we leave Texas," she said. "It's so desolate down there."

Suddenly frail

I have to take Mom's word that she was once shy, because she's been overcompensating for it during the 44 years I've known her.

As Mom has aged, she's become more forceful and less patient. And she swears like a soldier. When I asked her what she thought of her new airplane, she smiled and said it sure wasn't a "[expletive] 172," referring to the plodding Cessna trainers. When she accidentally dropped a pen, she cut loose with an impressive string of profanity.

I told her to knock it off.

"I know I've got to watch what I say around your kids," she said. "But they aren't here, so what's the big deal?"

I prefer succinct, even terse, cockpit communications that focus on tasks at hand — and Mom's swearing wasn't particularly descriptive or helpful. My tight-lipped style has worked well during thousands of hours of strenuous flying.

Mom wasn't going for it.

With her seat scooted all the way forward, my mother's 5-foot-1 frame allowed her to barely reach the rudder pedals. A sudden spike of turbulence slammed us against our seats. Mom reflexively swore, then looked at me with a little-girl grin. "Can't help it," she shrugged.

I snapped a few pictures as we crossed the peaks above Albuquerque, N.M. Canyons and mesas, riverbeds and sandstone. I was struck by the desert's stark beauty.

Mom, the Garden State native, wasn't impressed.

"I don't see how anyone could live here," she said. "No trees, no mountains. No green."

Our head wind lightened as we entered Arizona.

I loosened my seat belt to keep it from pressing on my bladder. Mom pointed out everything that had to do with water.

"Is that a reservoir down there?" she asked. "What's the name of that big lake? I bet they have lots of flash floods around here."

We crossed the red rocks of Sedona and began our descent into Prescott. The wind was gusting and swirling on the desert floor. I didn't want Mom to make her first landing in such challenging conditions.

I took the controls and landed at Prescott, and raced to find a bathroom. Walking back to the plane in the golden twilight, I was thrilled to have made it so far on the first flight without any big problems.

But as I went to retrieve our bags, Mom tugged at my elbow.

I was walking too fast, she said.

When I looked back, her normally pink cheeks were ashen and she seemed suddenly frail. I instantly regretted keeping her in the thin air for so long.

"I think I'm going to have to sit down," she said. "I'm not used to this altitude."

'You're low and slow'

Mom was her scrappy self the next morning — but a new complication had cropped up. The weather in Arizona was crystal clear. But a thick blanket of fog covered the West Coast, and our destination, Santa Paula, Calif., was socked in.

We had hoped to begin the final leg of our trip in cool, smooth air with the morning sun at our backs. But now we'd stay on the ground and give the coastal fog a chance to burn off.

Towering cumulus clouds were starting to build over the desert.

"Looks like more turbulence," Mom said, adding a few expletives.

Mom told me she wanted to handle the radio and navigation on the next leg of the trip as well as the flying. I bluntly vetoed her suggestion.

"You've got your hands full right now," I said. "Fly the plane, and I'll add to your workload later."

I started planning an instrument approach to another California airport in case Santa Paula didn't clear. Mom called friends at home for weather reports. They were preparing a welcome, and she wanted to make sure they knew our whereabouts.

Three hours later, we were finally in the plane — and Mom was ready for her first takeoff. She taxied to the runway as I read from a checklist.

She lined up with the center line and added full power. At 80 mph, she smoothly lifted the nose and turned west. She steadily guided the plane to altitude and set the autopilot. Her spirits soared as we crossed into California.

She took out her cellphone and sent a few text messages.

I don't know how to send text messages.

"It's easy," she laughed. "I'll teach you!"

The weather stayed clear for most of the trip. But as we approached the coastal mountains, a wave of fog lapped against them. Santa Paula is at the foot of jagged peaks — and we had to be able to see the airport several miles away to land there.

I told her to fly over the airport at high altitude in clear air to see if landing was possible. Mom looked down and spotted the runway, a short, 2,600-foot strip bordered by the Santa Clara River. We spiraled down and followed the river toward the airport.

Mom's approach was high at first — then low.

"You're low," I said.

Nothing.

"You're low and slow," I said a few moments later.

"It's a short runway," she shot back.

I was looking for corrective action, not a debate. I added power to slow our rate of descent. Mom got flustered and quit flying.

"You've got the airplane," she said.

I finished the landing. But Mom was disgusted and seemed reluctant to taxi to the ramp, where a dozen friends and family members were smiling and waving.

"I'm usually so good at landing," she said. "That's what I've always done best."

Mom couldn't put the poor approach out of her mind during the celebration. I drank sparkling cider and told her it was no big deal.

But I was worried, too.

I'd seldom seen her so disconcerted. I wondered if, perhaps, this airplane was beyond her ability.

'A foul mouth, too'

Mom and I got up early and planned to fly several times the next day.

"Forget about yesterday's landing," I said. "The checkout starts now."

But fog had rolled in again — and this time it didn't clear. We spent hours making and revising checklists. With Mom in the left seat, I'd read through the procedures for starting the plane, taxiing, taking off, climbing, leveling off, descending and landing. We practiced aerial emergencies on the ground.

With repetition, her hands moved with greater self-assurance.

The next day was cloudy, too, and we returned to the plane for more checklist revisions. But as we practiced in the cockpit, the fog began to lift. Soon I could see a nearby mountain.

"How tall is that one?" I asked.

"A thousand feet."

"Let's fly."

Mom started the plane and taxied to the runway.

This time, I kept my hands in my lap and she made three unassisted takeoffs and landings. Her spirit and self-confidence were returning. But my time was running out, and I had to be back at work in Atlanta soon.

Mom called Judy, a local flight instructor. They had flown together recently when Mom renewed her pilot's license. Judy seemed eager to fly with Mom again, and I took Judy aside for a candid chat about her student.

"She'll push you to let her do things in the plane that she's not quite ready to do," I warned. "And she's got a foul mouth."

Judy had already sized Mom up.

"I won't let her go till she's ready," she said. "And I've got a foul mouth, too."

I felt bad for being too tough on Mom and making her doubt herself, but I also needed to know I hadn't overlooked some critical part of her training.

Judy gave me — and Mom — a second opinion.

A few weeks after I left for home, Mom called, and I knew she had won Judy's blessing to fly solo as soon as I heard the singsong sound in her voice. Mom brought up several non-flying topics before nonchalantly mentioning that she had already begun to use her plane as she intended.

Mom's persistence had paid off again. And this time, it gave me a reason to write a few words of my own in her logbook — the one she'd kept since I was a young boy.

"RV-10 checkout: OK."