Dr. Araujo belongs to a Bay Area club of pilots that owns five gliders. Monthly membership fees cover use of the craft. Other out-of-pocket costs include towing fees.
In the United States, the most common way to tow a glider is an aerotow, in which the gilder is towed into the sky with a 200-foot-long rope hooked to the back of an engine-powered plane.
“You're towed up into the air with that, so you're flying in formation behind the tow plane,” he explained. “You have a release hook on the rope and you release at whatever altitude you want, based on the air conditions.”
When he's piloting a gilder near Hollister, Dr. Araujo often soars with hawks and eagles. “They'll be right there in the same thermal, which is an uprising column of air,” he said.
As with other forms of flight, weather can make or break an intended gliding route. Eight years ago, Dr. Araujo was flying in Hemet when a thunderstorm cloud approached from a nearby mountain range. “I was trying to figure out: Am I going to be able to stay up and wait for it to go past, or should I try to land first?” he recalled. “I decided to land first, which probably was not the best decision. I landed right in the middle of this thunderstorm cloud coming right across the airport. It was the rockiest landing I ever had.”
To maintain his pilot status, Dr. Araujo undergoes flight review by a certified instructor every 2 years. “It's almost like recertification for a physician,” he said. “But during that time, you have to fly enough in between–at least once every 90 days–in order to remain a pilot in command. You have to do it frequently enough to remain safe.”
Doug Brunk San Diego Bureau
Good hand-eye coordination and the ability to apply knowledge are necessary in flying, which translates well to medicine, said Dr. Kevin Ware. KARI WARE
Risks of Flying Help Put Life in Perspective
I didn't grow up with a burning desire to fly a plane. But my teenage cousin took me flying in the late 1950s after he had gotten his license and that experience stayed in the back of my mind for several years. So when the chance arose to learn how to fly, I jumped at it.
That opportunity occurred during my first month of internship in 1972, when I was rotating in the emergency room 24 hours on and 24 hours off. Returning to my apartment for 6 hours of sleep allowed me time to enroll in a flying school at Lambert Field in St. Louis. When I found that flying in a small plane didn't bring on any nausea and the freedom of the skies was exhilarating, I was hooked. I soloed at 10 hours and had the date recorded on a torn t-shirt. By 50 hours, I had earned my private single-engine land license.
I was now allowed to fly passengers and I eagerly chose close friends. Flights to Silver Dollar City in the Ozarks; Hannibal, Mo.; Greenville, Ill.; and Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio, proved to be exciting adventures. But not all my trips ended on a high note.
When I took up my future wife for a spin on a blustery spring day, the turbulence proved to be too much for her to handle. When her tears began to flow, I knew I needed to get back to terra firma. It was the last flight she took in a single-engine plane. Another time, I landed on a grass strip in the Ozarks with two passengers and picked up a third at the field. I hadn't figured in the extra weight and just barely cleared the fence at the end of the runway. I was sweating bullets, but my passengers were oblivious to the near miss.
After residency in 1975, I chose to return to my wife's native state, Ohio, and practiced in Fairfield County. I continued to fly mostly by myself until one fateful day.
After returning from a solo trip around the area, my wife asked how much it had cost. My answer was met by, “I could have bought a place setting of china for that price.” That was essentially the end of my flying career for 20 years while my children were growing up and my wife was completing her china collection. She impressed on me the fact that it would be easier to raise four children with both spouses. I got the hint.