A small percentage of the nation’s private pilots carry Federal Aviation Administration certificates bearing a restriction: “Not Valid for Flights Requiring the Use of Radio.”
In reality, however, it’s not much of a restriction. Only 7 percent of American airspace below 18,000 feet is controlled – requiring radio communication – and this mostly around big-city airports with control towers.
And it’s no restriction at all to the 70-plus deaf or hard-of-hearing private pilots for whom the FAA certificate is a window to another world – a world where they can soar free of the limitations imposed on them by a hearing majority.
“In aviation I find an acceptance I have never found in any other area of my life,” said Henry Kisor, 57, a newspaper editor who has been a pilot for five years. (Kisor, who learned language and speech before losing his hearing, lipreads and speaks.)
“In flying there is a sense of freedom like nothing else,” he said. “When you’re piloting an airplane, nothing anyone can do can touch you. It’s just you, the plane and the elements.”
Kisor, along with about two dozen other deaf and hard-of-hearing pilots and their families, recently attended the fourth annual fly-in of the International Deaf Pilots Association here. The IDPA, a deaf pilot’s advocacy group, has a membership of 140 deaf or hard-of-hearing pilots from around the world.
Mark Stern, 33, a software engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., says all pilots are the same under the skin. “A pilot is a pilot,” he said. “When I land at an airport, other pilots are interested in how I fly, not in how I can’t hear.”
The history of deaf aviation in this country is surprisingly free of the conflict that has marred the progress of other minority or disabled groups. There has never been a time in the history of American aviation when deaf or hard-of-hearing pilots couldn’t fly.
Deaf pilots have been airborne since shortly after the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903. Eight years later, Calbraith Perry Rodgers, who lost most of his hearing at age 12 to scarlet fever, was the first pilot to fly cross-country.
When radio communications between ground control and airplanes became standard after World War II, the uncontrolled airspace waiver allowed the deaf to continue to fly. The provision has been subject to few challenges, probably because most of America’s airspace is uncontrolled: Of 14,000 public-use airports, only 700 require radio.
In reality, it’s the perception — reinforced by bias and ignorance — that the deaf and hard of hearing can’t get a private pilot’s license that has kept many from learning to fly.
It grounded Kisor for almost half a lifetime.
“My father was a naval officer stationed at a naval base in Florida during World War II,” he recalled. “I saw my first plane when I was 3 and decided then and there that I wanted to be a fighter pilot. But I soon became aware of the limitations hearing people place on the deaf and I told myself that deaf people couldn’t become pilots.”
That changed when, at age 35, Kisor met a deaf pilot, a doctor who owned his own plane. But by then Kisor was a father with two young children and unable to shoulder the financial responsibility of learning to fly.
Years later, when he decided the time was right to realize a less glorified version of his childhood dream, Kisor learned that he would have to overcome more daunting obstacles than a lack of funds.
Although he now knew the deaf could fly, convincing others was more difficult. When he contacted several uncontrolled airfields near his home in Evanston, he encountered resistance.
“I was told that classes were full or that their airfields weren’t equipped to train handicapped pilots,” he said. “Anger is a powerful motivator. And when someone tells me I can’t do something because I’m deaf . . . Eventually, I found a pilot who had previously taught a deaf pilot.”
Teaching a deaf person to fly takes “infinite patience,” according to Stern; both his and Kisor’s instructors worked out ingenious non-verbal communication systems that allowed the two to learn and fly simultaneously.
Going the extra mile
For Stern, learning to fly also meant making an hour’s drive from his Palo Alto home to an uncontrolled airfield in Half Moon Bay. It was a small price to pay to achieve what every student pilot dreams of: that first solo flight.
But when Stern went to an FAA-sanctioned physician for the checkup that would certify him to fly solo and get his private pilot’s license, he ran into another wall. “The minute I opened my mouth and he realized that I was deaf, the doctor said, `I’m not going to approve your license.’ I told him I wanted to find a way for us to work together, but he was adamant.”
(Like Kisor, Stern is oral deaf, but also knows American Sign Language. The oral deaf, because they know speech and language, often communicate primarily by lipreading and speaking; the culturally deaf, who are usually born deaf, communicate almost exclusively in sign language.)
Stern appealed to the FAA, who granted him a waiver. “Now that I’m flying I’d like to go back and tell that doctor. . . . But I don’t need to prove myself to him.”
Yet, in a sense, that’s exactly what deaf pilots must do each time they climb into a cockpit. In an airspace increasingly ruled by high-tech communication gadgets, they must rely on simple eyesight to track other aircraft during takeoff, flight and landing.
“After a while you can almost feel when a plane is in the vicinity,” Stern said in defense of the deaf pilot’s visual radar. “Pilots who use radios become complacent. They come in for landings without even looking.”
There is a popular saying among aviators that there are two kinds of pilots: those who have been in an accident and those who will be. Deaf pilots are no exception. Yet when they do become involved in an incident, some observers are quick to implicate their “disability.”
Kent Power, 58, is a lanky Australian who owns an automotive supply store in Phoenix. Although his father, an air force pilot, taught him to fly, the culturally deaf Power was unable to secure a private pilot’s license in his native Australia. So he moved to the United States in 1970 and acquired his U.S. pilot’s license in 1975.
Last year, during Labor Day weekend, the engine on Power’s Cessna 210 stalled as he flew over an Arizona freeway. The plane was losing altitude, the fuel pump wasn’t working and the nearest airport was two miles away.
“I knew I wasn’t going to make the airport,” Power signed while Stern interpreted. “As I was landing on the freeway, where the cars had moved aside for me, the man sitting behind me panicked and grabbed my arms. I lost control and crashed. Although the plane was totaled, fortunately, no one was hurt.”
The initial ruling by the National Transportation and Safety Board, which investigated the incident, was that the plane had run out of fuel. Power was devastated by the implications: He would be labeled not only a negligent pilot, but a negligent deaf pilot.
After further investigation, however, the board found that it had been too quick to judge. When the plane was removed from the crash site, it was found that the remaining fuel in Power’s tank, about 10 gallons, had leaked into one of the wings. So the board ruled the incident the result of mechanical failure.
Six months after the crash Power was back in the air. “I love to fly,” he signed. “When I fly, I feel like a bird. I can’t imagine not being able to fly. I won’t let anyone stop me.”
Another threat
This almost fanatical attachment many, if not most, deaf and hard-of-hearing pilots feel to their hard-won hobby was briefly threatened in 1995.
In an effort to curb the influx into American airspace of foreign student pilots — whose poor grasp of English caused problems for air traffic controllers — the FAA decided to require that all pilots “be able to read, write, speak and understand the English language.” That grounded deaf pilots too.
“Mark (Stern) noticed it,” Kisor said. “He took the trouble to read the small print of the FAA’s proposal and spotted the new language.” Stern then notified members of the IDPA in Washington, and along with several other national organizations for the deaf, they prevailed on the FAA to change the regulations.
“Not only was the provision restored,” said Kisor, “but it was extended to apply to other new regulations. When new technology allows deaf pilots to communicate with air traffic control, we will be able to earn instrument ratings and fly in bad weather.” (Because deaf pilots rely primarily on their vision to detect air traffic, they don’t fly at night or in bad weather when visibility is at a minimum.)
Don’t ever make the mistake of implying to a deaf or hard-of-hearing pilot that his or her experience is in any way lessened by an inability to hear the roar of a plane’s engine in full throttle or the hum of a propeller.
“It’s the flight, stupid,” might be one response.
“Shortly after I got my license I flew up the Hudson River from New Jersey,” Kisor recalled. “Seeing the coastline panorama spread before me like a magic carpet, with pleasure boats on one side, ocean liners and tankers on the other — I have never felt that kind of pure joy, with the exception of my wedding day and the birth of my first child.”
