Students First Solo Flights

Sport Pilot and Ultralight Pilot Comments

Rocky Bertsch from Oregon states "Dale Kerner is an excellent flight instructor. Dale's first concern is safety both on the ground and in the air. He told me at the start to expect 10 to 12 hours of flight training before he would even consider letting me solo. During the Introductory Flight Dale took the time to explain everything he was doing as he demonstrated the different characteristics and capabilities of the trike. He also told me at what point in my training I would be expected to master the same maneuvers. During each training flight, he would stress emergency procedures foremost. I was always aware of my surroundings and all possible landing areas in the event of an engine failure. Dale would ask me "if the engine quite right now where would you land". I would have to pick a spot immediately and tell him where it was. Sometimes he would tell me to reduce power to an idle and go for the landing. Once in the desert he had me take the trike all the way to the ground and land it using emergency procedures to burn off altitude and store up energy to bring the trike to a safe controlled touchdown and rollout to a full stop. Then I had to pick a suitable area long enough to take off safely.
During my flight training upon entering into the final turn for a landing, Dale would almost always have me cut the engine power to an idle to give me experience at landing with no power from the engine (known in aviation as a dead stick landing). I must say that after more than a hundred touch downs using this procedure it became a natural way for me to land. Using power on landings became a rare event in deed. Thank you Dale.
I knew during the Introductory Flight that I would purchase a trike in the very near future. Like most of you reading this, I used the Internet to search for pre-owned trikes. When I would find something of interest, I would tell Dale about it. He would give me his opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of the brand. He would ask very pointed questions about condition and the aircraft's history. Dale never seemed to pressure me to purchase a trike from him, in fact, he did not even mention he was a dealer for the first week I was looking. When he did say something, all he asked was before I did make a purchase commitment to give him a chance at providing me with a trike. In the end, Dale did find me a very good deal on a new North Wing Trike and Wing that someone purchased from him and was unable to fly because of a shoulder injury. He put me in contact with the individual and the trike became mine.
After I took delivery of the new trike, I was surprised at Dale's willingness to assist me with setting up the trike, breaking in the engine, tuning the wing and then flying it for the initial flight. He made sure the trike was totally ready for an inexperienced student before he would allow me to fly it with him in the back seat. Again, thank you Dale.
I find that working with a small firm like Skybound LSA is a huge advantage in the one-on-one time given to a student and I highly recommend Dale Kerner to anyone contemplating the fulfillment of their dream of flight.