Pete Rafle Princeton Flying School Podcast 2

Welcome to “From The Right Seat” with Pete Rafle, Princeton Flying School Instructor Emeritus. In this episode Pete shares a few flying stories and teaching tips gained from his 55 years in the air… including his years with Pan Am and TWA.

“From The Right Seat” with Pete Rafle is sponsored by the Princeton Flying School at the Princeton Airport and is produced by HG Media. If you enjoyed our podcast please share it with your friends.

“I’ve been flying airplanes since 1963. I joined the Navy and learned how to fly. In the Navy, I was assigned to a P3 squadron. I flew anti-submarine warfare. I was in Vietnam, ’66, ’67, then went to work for Pan-American World Airways, and then I went to TWA. I worked for two large airlines.

We moved down to New Jersey, lived in Hopewell, and my wife happened to buy me a gift certificate of an hour’s flight time at the Princeton Airport. I came over and Naomi Nierenberg, who was the head of the school, said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I just want you to give me a safe for solo so I can rent an airplane.” She said, ” You’re an air transport pilot. I need a commercial pilot to give rides and lessons.” So I added on a single engine rating on to my air transport rating, that followed by a flight instructor rating, followed by an instrument flight instructor rating, and I started teaching here at Princeton Airport. That was 20 years ago. I have well over 4,000 hours in Princeton Flying School airplanes.” – Pete Rafle