Technique
Above Bush school day… Keith Watts and Kirk Robertson focus on C C Pocock during a groundschool session Left Bush-Air flag is clear proof that calm wind days are the exception in the Nevada desert Below Kidwell town airport is at the intersection of three states – California, Nevada, Arizona
28 | FLYER | June 2021
Nevada. He is a man of multiple skills, self-taught by life, using them – and following his Barberton airport-style – he slowly converted the old trailer house into an oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert. Swimming pool and fish pond included! His HQ has several comfortable rooms which can be used by the students who visit his school from all over the world. I left early the following day, but not before booking a date to return in December. For those three days in the Bush-Air classroom, I wasn’t going to be alone. My wingmen would be Keith Watts, from Tennessee, a professional race car driver instructor who owns a Cessna 172 – and Kirk Robertson, a dentist from Flagstaff, Arizona, who brought his 182 to Kidwell. You have the option to use your own aircraft for training or choose between the 172 or 170B available from Bush-Air. Each day was a similar format, a good breakfast with espresso coffee, eggs and bacon to ‘fill the tank’ for the long day ahead. Groundschool, followed by flying as early as possible before the desert started to heat up. Day one of C C’s advanced backcountry flying course (level one) saw him drawing diagrams and describing concepts that weren’t really what I’d been expecting. He constantly repeated the words ‘safety, safe, proficient, confident’ – all these allied to the word ‘skill’. Stabilised approaches, optimum weight & balance, survival equipment, and safety were concepts that he
