I have noticed that a lot of us on this board are pilots and I figure that we need a thread devoted to just talking about flying. So here it is…
I’ve had a pilots certificate for nearly 2 years. I fly out of Addison airport in Dallas. I always fly Piper Warriors or Piper Archers because they just look better than Cessnas. Whoever thought about putting a wing on top of an airplane :-)? That’s just wrong.
I have a group of friends that I like to take flying for lunch once a month (and split the cost of the plane with). Usually we fly to Tyler because it’s the perfect distance away and we know we can always get off the airport and find someplace to eat. This month if the weather clears up we’re going to try McAlister in Oklahoma.
Hopefully that will get a converstaion going. Just tell me about flying!
I got my pilot’s liscense when I was 19. It got too expensive for me to keep up, its no longer current. I flew out a small airport in Michigan, specifically Linden Price niner gulf two. I only flew one type of plane, a Cessna 152 and had accumulated about 120 hours in it. I was halfway to getting my instrument rating when I quit.
OK -
how do y’all think the proposed Sport Pilot license (and associated airplanes/lighter-than-air vessels/gyroplanes (everything except helicopters and power lift devices) will affect general aviation?
Re-vitalize it (lots of little Rans’ and Zenith’s flitting about) or just go the way of the Recreational Pilot cert?
I’m amazed that it has made it this far - the maintenance rules allow owners to do their own inspections - A&P’s ain’t gonna like that.
If nothing else, it may make flight training affordable - if enough factory-builts come out (which looks likely).
an example (now, thanks to lawyers, available only as a kit, but the parent company also builds ready-to-fly) see the
Whatcha think?
p.s. - for gory details, see http://www.sportpilot.org
Question for pilots: Have you ever had a passenger who paused with one foot on the step, looked at you problingly, and inquired, “You sure you know how to fly this thing?”
Sure did. . .
And I said, “Dad, don’t worry. It’s just like Nintendo.”
Tripler
I really had a friend with his PPL as PIC.
Heehee! If I were a pilot (which I’m not) in that situation, I think I’d say, “No, but they gave me a license anyway because I’m so cute.”
When that happened to me I said “Naw… but I’m a woman, I’ve been faking for years anyhow.”
One thing that does surprise me again and again are the folks who say “You don’t look like a pilot?” Um, what are they supposed to look like? An informal poll of the doubters seems to indicate a pilot looks like this: Male, 22, six foot (or more), blond hair, blue eyes (he only wears sunglasses 'cause they’re kewl, not because he needs them to see), suntan/burn.
Well, no, I don’t look like that.
Neither does any other pilot I know.
Actually, most pilots I know are short, bald, paunchy old farts (but I love 'em anyway 
)
And that time I landed off-field due to sudden bad weather – I don’t know what that farmer was expecting to climb out of the Cessna, but it sure as heck wasn’t me. Look! It’s a cute lil’ thang with long braids and tits! Then again, after having an airplane land in his backyard he was so far into the Twilight Zone effect that a three-legged purple alien could have climbed out and he still would have offered a cup of coffee.
I got my private ticket the day I turned 21. Flew my 200th hour in a Beech T-34 in San Diego. (Aside to Broomstick - I’m sure you can imagine the looks I got when climbing out of the T-34. I was much daintier when I was in my early 20s) Got my instrument rating in Indiana when I was going to college. I was within 4 hours or so of my commercial license when I quit flying - October 1978. I’ve got around 275 total hours.
Once I bought my first house, I was pretty sure I’d never fly again for fun. Now that we have both house and boat, I know I’ll never pilot an aircraft again, unless I hit Lotto. Ah well, life goes on.
I bought a book called How to Fly Helicopters. When we’re strapped in, I pull out the book and look at it, then look at the panel and say, “Button, button… Who’s got the button? Ah! There it is!” and start the engine. Then I look confusedly at the book and the panel some more.
Hi-
Rating: CFI, ASEL
Last time I flew: On my CFI checkride in Casper, Wyoming, April, 1993
Went to college for aviation training, got a degree, got the tickets, but then ran into the worst part about flying- that it doesn’t matter how good you are, just how long you’ve been around. I took my CFI at the minimum requirements- 250.5 hours (average at the time was just over 300) and aced it. Went back to Denver to start working for a flight school that had promised me a job, and found out that they couldn’t insure me because I didn’t have 350 hours. So they said I could work the counter on weekends, for free, and continue to take lessons to get my multi, CFII, etc. Well, at about $100/hour average cost, I couldn’t afford it. So I applied to a few colleges, got a scholarship, and went back to school.
One day I might fly recreationally again, but I’d have to pass a 2-year, and trying to pass that would probably take as much effort as my original PPL did…
take care-
-Tcat
I have my Private and Commercial tickets, and will be completing my Instrument rating in the next two months. Then it’s off to CFI school in April. I fly Piper Warriors, Colts, and Apaches.
At the end of December I’ll be visiting Phoenix, and I hope to get a ride in a P-51 Mustang at the Champlin Fighter Plane Museum. Anyone from that area want to come take pictures?
My daddy flew Mohawks and almost went to Vietnam. His last flight physical showed a spot on his lung; it turned out to be a virus that went away, but they grounded him anyway. He thought he wanted to be a flight instructor for a while and took lessons… I don’t know why that never panned out. He eventually became a psychologist.
All I have to say is thank you, Uncle Sam, for sparing my dad.
Got my Private in '94, flew around a little bit, taking friends and family up, for about a year. Then I realized I was just flying to maintain my currency, so I stopped, with about 85 total hours. Didn’t fly again until a few weeks ago.
Took me just two flights to get my BFR done, and an hour of ground school to update any book knowledge that had changed (just a few things, nothing real major). The first flight was a little shaky, but it started coming back to me. The second flight went very well, and the landings started to get better and better. it was really surprisingly easy to get back into!
Tomcat, if I as a 90 hour private pilot found it easy to get back, certainly you as a 250+ hour CFI would have no problem. Man, is it fun again, too!
I’m already planning a few longer trips, and have had the local sectionals spread out on my table for a few weeks now. I can almost recite airways and frequencies by heart!
Oh, and I do really question whether the “Sport Pilot” idea is going to make any difference at all. “Recreational Pilot” didn’t seem to, but then again like I said above, I’ve been out of it for a while.
But I’ve been wrong before, so we’ll see what happens.
J.K Havener closes his book The Martin B-26 Marauder (Aero Div. of Tab Books, Inc., Blue Ridge Summit, PA) with the following:
*"Now, to end … on a light note
Maraudermen had always been proud of the fact that they had mastered a “hot” airplane and were prone to brag about it … the story was often told during WWII of two macho “hot pilot” B-26 transition instructors emerging from the operations building one late summer afternoon in 1943.
They looked up in admiration as a lone B-26 zoomed across the field in a low pass at tower level, pulled up in a steep bank, and made a tight circle to approach for a landing. The wheels came down as the ship rolled out onto the final, followed by the flaps as its wings leveled for the touchdown, and it greased in for a perfect landing and turned off at the first intersection.
One pilot turned to the other and proudly exclaimed: "Now, that’s a man’s airplane!" The second one replied:"You can say that again! Let’s wheel over to the ramp and see who this ‘hot rock’ is who makes a fighter approach."
Imagine their chagrin when out from the nosewheel well dropped a diminutive damsel of the WASP (Women’s Air Force Service Pilot), etc. who had ferried the ship from the Martin factory in Baltimore.
"Is nothing sacred anymore?" they muttered, as they headed to the club to satiate their deflated egos and wounded pride ...."*
I learned to fly in the Army at Rankin Aeronautical Academy in Tulare, CA in 1943 in Stearman PT-17 biplanes, helmet, goggles and all. Some of the guys even bought white scarves. I guess they wanted to look like Errol Flynn in Dawn Patrol
Took Basic in BT-13’s (Vultee Vibrator). Advanced multiengine in AT-17 Cessnas. Flew Martin B-26 (wings on top are not either wrong, fazeb) and Douglas A-26 (wings in the middle are OK too) in ETO. Others include: North American AT-6, Piper Cub and Stinson liason planes, Cessnas 152, 172, 182, 205. Piper Cherokee, Aircoupe.
I quit flying about 30 years ago.
Newly minted av8r here… I just got my certificate a few weeks ago, but still have yet to get the real one from the FAA. The only reason I haven’t gone out since then is that the school called and told me how much I owed them. I intend to pay them off and go back out within 2 weeks. Hopefully, it’s something that will never get old for me.
So, for the record, ASEL, ~90 hrs logged in C-172’s. The school only operates 172s and 152s so no choice there.
you rang?
I soloed on my 16th birthday, eventually getting my Private.
A few years later I got the Instrument and Commercial.
After changing careers, I didn’t fly much for several years.
I was saving to buy a plane (actually, I was planning to form a partnership with 2 or 3 other pilots), but eventually joined a flying club instead. I haven’t been current Instrument for a long time, but I’ll will work on that in the next few months.
I actually like flight reviews.
I’d been hearing rumors of being able to deduct flying from your taxes (U.S.), so I decided to look into it. Since I work in an aviation-related field, I think I fit under the “Education to Maintain or Improve Skills” clause in Pub 508. The tricky thing is whether or not I have to actually be training for something, like an instrument rating. But if I consider every flight of mine to be a training flight, I think that it might qualify. Every flight does give me a better appreciation for the aviation environment, and therefore allows me to do my job better. Who said that training as a tax deduction can’t be fun as well?
Any thoughts on this?
This fits into my “Too good to be true” category, ski.
Not that I’ve been doing any flying lately that I could claim. The last flight I was supposed to take was Sep 13th last year. I was going to do a cross-country up to Maryland to take my mom and brother up at Mont. Co. Airpark. Obviously, I had to canx.
Since then I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to make the drive up to my club at Langley AFB. I need another fam in the 172 to feel confident, which means more time I need to commit to studying the numbers and EP’s, not to mention doing the annual club tests. Plus, I really hate Cessnas (what’s with that dang “throttle” they have?). I learned in a Cherokee 140, which I loved. It’s the perfect little plane. The club I’m at now has an Arrow which I really should get cleared for, but it’s a bit too expensive. No Cherokees. So aside from the time constraints, my morale is low right now.