DPA 2011 FLY-IN IS CANCELED

By Anthony Witcher

Writer for Deaf Pilots Association

The DPA 2011 fly-in is officially canceled.

The next DPA 2012 fly-in will be hosted at Corona, California at the Corona Municipal Airport (AJO), from Sunday, July 8th through Saturday, July 14th.

We expect to have more information for you by our Fall newsletter at the latest. So please check back periodically for updates.

Two deaf pilots are pursuing their private pilot's license

By Anthony Witcher

Writer for Deaf Pilots Association

Chu Lee and Brent Redpath are pursuing their private pilot's license. They are featured in the following articles below with printed permission from original authors.

Editors Note/Correction: Brent Redpath received his Private Pilot certificate as of July 2009. Thanks for the correction Brent. Congrats on your achievement!

'Sharing a brain cell'
Instructor, student overcome communication barrier

By Alyssa J. Miller

Published June 2009, AOPA Online

Printed with permission

www.aopa.org

Chu Lee is fully deaf. He doesn’t read lips. His flight instructor, Dominick Moyer, doesn’t know sign language. But the two have a natural communication style that allows them to work together seemingly effortlessly in the cockpit. A quick thumbs-up, a nod, a note, or a finger point translates flawlessly into a takeoff, heading change, slip, or other maneuver.

“We have a system, like a body language system, and when he makes a certain movement, I know how to adjust. It’s like we’re sharing a brain cell on that one. We can really read each other’s minds,” Lee said through an interpreter. Lee, who was first captivated by aviation as a child watching military aircraft fly over Busan, South Korea, moved to the United States in 1987 to attend college and now lives in Odenton, Md.

The pair’s ease of communication was evident on a 45-minute cross-country flight from Frederick, Md., to Cumberland, Md., on a clear VFR day. Lee frequently ran his hand across the windscreen, letting Moyer know that he was scanning for traffic. Moyer quizzed Lee on his visual checkpoints and time calculations by pointing at the sectional chart and jotting notes.

Hand signals increased as they began their descent and approach at both nontowered airports. (Moyer handled the radio communications.) On the return to Frederick, Moyer used hand signals to instruct Lee to slip to lose some altitude on final—a signal that Lee instantaneously understood and complied with, but this passenger misinterpreted as a call for S-turns.

After the flight, the two communicated using Moyer’s laptop. “Good job today,” lined the top of the debrief Word document. Moyer often sends the debrief notes to Lee via e-mail so that he can study them between lessons.

Immediate connection

Communication came naturally for the two when they started flying together earlier this year through Frederick Flight Center at Frederick Municipal Airport.

Frederick Flight Center instructor Dominick Moyer (left) and Chu Lee

after completing a cross-country flight from Frederick, Md., to Cumberland, Md.

It helps to have “a good understanding of what each other wants, and I think we had that from the start,” Moyer said of Lee, his first student. Lee had worked with another instructor in 2008, which helped to ease Moyer’s transition into the world of flight instructing—he already grasped takeoffs, landings, and the basic flight maneuvers. Moyer has helped Lee hone his skills and taught him some new techniques, including the wing-low method for crosswind landings because Lee knew the crab method.

“He explains everything very clearly so that I understand,” Lee said.

Moyer said he had complete confidence signing Lee off for his solo flights. Just as many student pilots say they hear their instructor coaching them during their first solo or solo cross-country, Lee said he often imagines Moyer is right there with him, guiding him along the way with nonverbal cues.

While most of Lee’s flight training has taken place at nontowered airports, the two are planning a flight to a towered facility for him to practice receiving light-gun signals—all in preparation for Lee’s upcoming checkride.

“I have a lot of faith that he’s going to do well on this,” Moyer said.

Ultimate dream

Chu Lee is working toward his private pilot certificate

and hopes to one day fly Boeing 747s or 777s.

Lee’s motivation during the private pilot flight training is his ultimate dream: to fly a Boeing 747 or 777. He’s already had two opportunities to observe flight crews performing their duties in flight in each—something he encouraged his flight instructor to check into after Moyer joked that he’s only been able to ride as a passenger in the back of those mammoth passenger jets.

According to Lee, the crews from both jets said he should be able to fly the aircraft for a career despite being deaf. “But I said, ‘How can I communicate on the radio?’ And they said, no, there are other backup options. You have to be ready. The main thing is that you have to be paying attention, and it can be handled smoothly,” Lee said, explaining that they communicated in the cockpit through writing. “They said yes, I can do it. Deaf people can do it.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He's earning his wings

Rogers High School alum Brent Redpath can’t hear

but that’s not stopping him from getting a college degree

and a pilot’s license

By Neil Pierson/ of The Herald

Puyallupherald.com

Published: June 2nd, 2010 06:00 AM

Printed with permission

When Brent Redpath is at the controls of his 160-horsepower Piper Cherokee airplane and soaring thousands of feet into the sky, the world is a brighter place for him.

Redpath isn’t the average pilot. The 2006 Rogers High School graduate was born deaf, making it impossible for him to communicate with an air traffic controller and limiting the ways in which he could learn the ins and outs of an aircraft. But the urge to fly was too powerful for him to ignore.

“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot since I was a little boy,” Redpath explained through his interpreter and fiancé, Shannon Lettow, during a rainy May afternoon at Thun Field in South Hill. “It was just a passion for me. I would watch airplanes and be fascinated with them.”

Taking the initiative to fly, however, was a spur-of-the-moment decision that came last January as he ate lunch and watched the planes at Independence State Airport, just minutes from Western Oregon University, where Redpath is pursuing a degree in American Sign Language (ASL) studies.

He called up a flight school and found a friendly instructor who was willing to train a deaf student. Less than 18 months later, Redpath has his private pilot’s license and has completed 80 of the 250 hours he needs to become a commercial pilot.

“I can get my commercial license and work as a crop duster or for a skydiving company or banner towing across the sky, those kinds of things,” Redpath said.

While piloting, Redpath can’t use the radio but he can take off and land from any airport without a control tower. That means he’s able to use 95 percent of the airports in the nation.

His ultimate dream is to become a commercial airline pilot, but because he can’t hear or speak audibly, those plans have been put on hold indefinitely.

“I’m just hoping and praying that technology will improve and let a deaf pilot work for an airline company,” Redpath said. “But right now I’m just focusing on getting all of the certificates and the ratings I can until the point I can’t go any further.”

In the meantime, Redpath has plenty of other activities on his plate. He’ll be graduating from Western Oregon on June 12 and transferring to Oregon State University this fall, enrolling in a master’s degree program for college student services administrators. He wants to teach and direct a college-level ASL program one day.

He and Lettow got engaged on April Fools’ Day and are planning a wedding for next July. Lettow knew how to sign before meeting Redpath and calls him “a gentleman” with “ a heart for working with people and when he’s facing a challenge, wanting to overcome it.”

The teachers who knew Redpath best during his days at Rogers paint the same picture.

“He was very mature and I would say I had a stronger bond with him than other players,” said Dan Thompson, Redpath’s high school baseball coach and sophomore year math teacher.

“Brent has an incredible work ethic,” Thompson added. “In math class, he would always do his daily work and made sure to ask questions about things he didn’t understand. I think he really did not want his disability to hold him back in any way.

“I don’t know if you really overcome being deaf, but he certainly did everything in his ability to minimize the impact it had on his life.”

Mario Casello worked with Redpath during his days as an assistant principal at Rogers. Now the principal at Kalles Junior High School, Casello calls Redpath “a pioneer” for the Puyallup School District’s deaf and hard-of-hearing program.

“I got to know Brent because of the time I committed to the program,” Casello explained. “He’s an unbelievable kid. The obstacles he has had to overcome in life to be successful are just mind-boggling.”

Redpath began teaching Casello the sign language alphabet and some words during their weekly chats. Redpath had to be more resilient than others to compete on the school’s baseball and football squads, Casello believes.

“He had no fear,” Casello said. “You think about the average kid and the obstacles they face, most kids would give up, but not him.”

Redpath says being deaf is often more of a challenge for others than it is for him.

“I’ve experienced a lot of that before, people kind of nervous to talk with me … but I just try to give an effort to convince them to talk with me,” he said. “Then they’ll feel a little bit more comfortable and say, ‘OK.’”

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