Life-long pilot

The son of a barnstormer who flew as a stunt pilot until the Great Depression, Baker made his first solo flight in 1943 in the cockpit of a Fairchild PT-23. Almost three-quarters of a century later, he’s still at the controls teaching the next generation of pilots.

Baker has worked as a freelance flight instructor since 1993, most of the time out of Martin State Airport, a 747-acre general aviation facility used for both civilian and military aircraft. He spent his early days flying C-109s in China during World War II, and then up through 1970, he served as a research pilot for Bendix, an aeronautical equipment designer.

Throughout this period, Baker earned pilot ratings on a fleet of aircraft that included North American Aviation’s B-25, the Douglas DC-4, and the Constellation, which was partly the brainchild of aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes. As copilot and later captain, Baker took part in groundbreaking research flights, using the B-25 to test one of the earliest forms of Doppler radar and the Constellation to calibrate tracking stations used for the space missions of the late 60s.

Sharing his aviation know-how

Today, he’s putting those years of experience to use as a teacher. His last lesson was less than two weeks ago, when he took a student pilot seeking his multi-engine license out for a five-hour flight in a Piper Twin Comanche.

“Students can definitely pick up on an instructor’s insincerity, and, unfortunately, there are a lot of young pilots out there who are teaching just to build up their flight time,” Baker says. “They don’t really have their heart in it, and that has a negative effect on the student’s experience.”

‘Negative transfer’

This experience includes several different levels of learning through which new pilots develop mechanics and instinct. For Baker, the first level involves a mixture of raw skills and psychology to avoid something called “negative transfer.” In layman’s terms, this means breaking old habits.

“Driving cars, we’re all used to turning the steering wheel and having the car go left or right, but in an airplane that means nothing because your ground steering controls are on the floor in your rudder pedals,” he explains. “When a student does this, he’s transferring knowledge that he shouldn’t, and as the instructor you have to work to break old habits.”

Other typical lessons might include communication skills with air traffic control or instrument rating exercises where pilots learn to trust their gauges over their senses, performing maneuvers like a 360-degree turn without gaining or losing 100 feet of altitude.

But Baker also stresses the importance of instinct and the student’s ability to read an aircraft’s performance and respond accordingly as its pilot. “You can’t let fear get in the way of flying,” he warns. “For example, don’t panic if you feel the plane shift a little to left due to torque. Just adjust for it in your rudders.”

Relaxed and deliberate