Learning to Fly

When we first start learning how to fly, the Knowledge bucket is just as full as we have made it. (Actually, at the start of flight training, the Knowledge bucket may be almost empty!) If we have studied hard, listened and taken notes during all our earth classes, and dedicated most of it into memory, our Knowledge bucket fills up steadily. We can readily understand the bucket filling, and this encourages us to study harder, learn more, and continually fill that bucket. It's also quite the magic bucket; it reaches a point where it overflows! The more knowledge we gain, forever and ever, the more complete our Knowledge bucket becomes!

Now that we have got a Knowledge bucket that we can see filling up daily, we are eager to get in the air and start flying. It's at this time that our Experience bucket slowly starts to fill up, starting with the bottom barely covered up with our meager flight experience. With each hour we flywhether under solo or instruction, if a nice easy day flight in VMC or a bad weather night flight where we are at the clouds getting bounced around from takeoff to landing, that Experience bucket keeps on filling. This bucket is magical also; it never seems to have completely full! Just when we think we have a great deal of experience (especially LONG after we have become rated pilots), that bucket keeps growing ever so slightly to have only a bit more space to stuff even more expertise in!

Whereas the Knowledge bucket and the Experience bucket are completely under our control, and open to allow us to track the rates at which they fill, the Luck bucket is a complete unknown. It's probably the most magical bucket of the three, in that it is of an indeterminate size, it's totally dark and impossible to see inside, and it isn't for us to fill, just take things from it. The only thing we know for certain is that the bucket is there. There will come times in our flying careers once we will need to reach our hand in that dark opening and search for a little Luck to get us out of a jam, and HOPEFULLY there's something there to pull out! Can it be empty the next time we reach in there? Can we reach in, searching for a small Luck, and come out empty handed? Who knows? The point here is that we should never rely on the Luck bucket to save . Instead we should maintain our Knowledge and Experience buckets full through diligent research and continuing practice of our flying skills, ensuring we shall not have to rely on our Luck bucket.