Any Pilots On Here??

[1stDeuce]

I go though this same scenario every so often too. I have a friend who takes me up occasionally in his 182, and another friend back in MI who co-owns a 182 with another fella. They both fly more than occasionally, but it gets expensive...

Right now, building a house is taking most of my free time, so I don't think about it much, but I'm sure when we're finished with this project, I'll come back around to it. The expense of getting a license is really not that much considering it can be spread over a year or so, and it is a one-time thing for the most part... With no rental FBO's near me, I would need to partner or buy a very small or experimental plane... To add to the difficulty, we live on the edge of a mountainous area, so a higher hp plane would be required if we want to fly east, particularly in warmer months.

I believe I'll eventually get my license, but I think it'll be when I'm closer to 50 than 44...

 

[fried1765]

Don't be discouraged, but do be informed. Take some time to browse the NTSB's website.

By the time I graduated college, I had logged quite a bit of time. A close friend and classmate's father was a dentist in the nearby town of Tracy, and was pretty well off - enough to pursue his love of flying. He owned a beautiful Piper PA-28R. He liked to take the wife and kids to Tahoe for a day or two, when time allowed. On January 12, 1984, the good dentist loaded up the Piper with his wife daughter (son had other commitment and was staying home) and decided to take off in fog, climb out of it, and fly to Tahoe. They flew into the ground 200 yards off the end of the runway. A few days later, I was a pallbearer.

The NTSB:
Analysis
THE FLIGHT DEPARTED UNDER INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, WITH
VISIBILITY RESTRICTED TO ONE QUARTER MILE BY FOG. THE CEILING WAS OBSCURED.
AFTER DEPARTURE WITNESSES HEARD THE AIRCRAFT MAKE WHAT APPEARED TO BE A
LEFT TURN. NEXT THEY HEARD THE ENGINE SOUND INCREASE FOLLOWED BY A LOUD
THUD. THE ACFT WAS FOUND WHERE IT HAD IMPACTED AN EMBANKMENT, NEXT TO A
ROAD ON RELATIVELY LEVEL TERRAIN, APPROXIMATELY 1/8 MI FROM THE DEPARTURE
END OF RWY 25. NO EYEWITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT COULD BE LOCATED. AN
INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE PLT HAD CALLED THE SACRAMENTO FSS BY
TELEPHONE. AT 0771, HE OBTAINED AN IFR CLEARANCE WITH A VOID TIME OF 0730.
THERE WERE NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE PLT & THE FSS. BEFORE
TAKEOFF, THE ACFT WAS PARKED ABOUT 2 MIN TAXI TIME FROM RWY 25. ACCORDING TO
THE FAA INSTRUMENT FLYING HANDBOOK, AC 61-27B, 5 MIN IS NEEDED FOR GYRO
INSTRUMENTS TO BE OPERATIONAL. HOWEVER, THE ACTUAL TIME ALLOWED BY THE PLT
(FOR THE INSTRUMENTS TO BECOME OPERATIONAL) IS NOT KNOWN.

Mistakes can be disasters very quickly in small planes. Even the most experienced pilots can experience mechanical failure, metal fatigue, or mental fatigue. Pressure to perform for our significant others can alter our judgement - we feel like failures if we abort our plan, when we promised. Incidents we live through are usually expensive. Those we don't live through....

It's not like driving a car - we don't generally have nearly as much experience, we're dealing with three dimensions and lots more variables, and it's much harder to walk away from an accident.

MINDSET-SKILLSET-TOOLSET, in that order.

PLEASE REFER TO MY PRIOR POST (#13)

 

[mjarrels]

In Naval aviation, it was called getithomeites. One of the last ones was a Marine Corp pilot with a in flight problem. Could have made it to NAS North Island but tried to make it back home to MCAS Marimar and didn't make it. Crashed in San Diego.

mark

 

[Alien]

I love flying but just can't go there so I fly models instead. I know a few pilots that had to give up because of the expense trying to keep their hours up.
When I was a kid my uncle owned an Auster. We flew lots in that. It still exists but he died years ago. Rego is ZK-AWH. It has had a few owners since then and has been painted a couple of times but the memories are still fresh in my mind.
These pics were taken about 60 years ago and I am one of the kids looking at the plane.

 

[Old Red]

Great information guys.....very very good. I spoke a friend of mine. She is pilot....wife of a physician....she a lot of hours in the sky.. very conservative pilot. And this is what I am learning....you can't take any chances.

I also went with my friend to check out his two planes today. We didn't go up but he has an iPad that has a pre-flight checklist that he ticks off each and every time.....That is cool....helps you to remember to be diligent.

 

[MossRoad]

When I took my kid for the introductory flight back around Christmas, the instructor had her do the pre-flight and explained all the control surfaces on the plane, what they do, how to check them, etc... Had her start up the engine and taxi out through the hangars out to the runway. Then he had her do the run-up and check it on each of the sets of plugs and magnetos. It was fouling out on one set. So he explained what it was doing, and kept having her run it up and check again and again. Finally got both sets running good. And then he told her to point it down the runway, give it the power, we started rolling and he told her to watch her speeds. We hit about 45 and he had her pull it back just a tad and up we went. She was pretty shocked how the plane, if trimmed out right, pretty much takes itself off. Heck, it pretty much flies itself. She trimmed it out for level flight and away we went. Had her fight the controls. Had her use the rudder and feel it fight her and explained why you don't turn with the rudder much at all, but rather drive the plane into the turns. Then he had her do turns, climbs, decents, etc.. towards the end, we buzzed our house a few times and took a bunch of pictures. He let her do everything but land the last 15 or so feet down. It was pretty windy and a cross-wind, but she got the idea.

Came away with a great smile and curiostiy about flying. She'll probably do some more in the summer if time permits with her college and research tasks.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

I have been flying for about 10 years. Bad weather made me stay in Disney one extra day and a few days at my mothers.

If your not willing to rent a car and drive home, then don't do it.

One other thing, if ATC ask you if you have weather in the plane, thats code for you are likely going to die if you proceed.

 

[PILOON]

Well I have not flown for some 10-12 years now but it like a horny dog in the spring,
The urge is still there, LOL

Last spring I was at a small FBO and almost submitted to that urge but better judgement took over and I resisted.
Besides my ticket is long expired and I'd have to ground school all over again plus medical etc etc.
On the other hand bet I could even show a young instructor/check pilot a thing or so.

Back then when I'd pop in at a new to me flying club and succumb to a check ride it never took a second circuit to get the thumbs up.
LOL many hours on a tail ragger teaches U well.

Once the tower instructed me that active was rwy 28 , winds 30-40t 360 eg so I requested 24 left 'at my discretion' to which they OK'd.
Runway was wide enough that I simply used the width and never touched the grass on either side.
Tower cleared me to taxi and added 'well done'.
(runways were 6000 ft and the taxi back from 28 would have been a bear with probably multiple ground loops du to fading brakes on the C170B)

 

[plowhog]

An interesting aspect of aviation is the bigger, better equipped planes are easier to fly than the smaller ones with lesser equipment.

I had a flight director in my Malibu. I frequently flew a 300nm route for a regularly scheduled business meeting.

Prior to takeoff, I would set rate of climb at 800ft per minute to climb altitude of 18,000 ft. The entire flight plan was in the Garmin GPS navigation system. Within 30 seconds after leaving the runway, I'd engage the flight director and not touch the yoke again until shortly before landing.

The old grizzled pilots sneered at "George" (nickname for autopilot.) I was taught to always use the equipment on board, let it do the flying tasks, and I was the backup monitor watching the accuracy of everything, checking weather updates, and watching for traffic. And enjoying the view!!

To be fair, much of the time I flew the instrument approaches manually just to keep in practice. But that was only several minutes of a two hour flight.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Take a look at the trade-a-plane.com website for pricing. If you think UTV pricing is ridiculous, then just take a look. In 1985 I bought a 1977 Cessna Cardinal RG for $13K while I was working in Venezuela, flew it back to USA when I finished my job. Spent another $3-4K on getting all the paperwork checked out and translated into English. Sold it in 1989 for $25K. If you can find one in trade-a-plane, just see what they are going for now. The Cardinal was a very roomy 4 place but way underpowered with it's 180 HP engine. It would have been great with a 225-250 HP engine. Cruise speed on mine would true at 150 knots at 10,000 feet and 8 GPH of fuel which made it really economical to fly. Insurance, airport fees and yearly inspections was just too much for me while raising my family. I was so busy working that I didn't have time to fly, so I sold it to an Air Force Captain. The bug does hit me every now and then till I look at pricing. Even ultra-light planes are in the $20K range.

 

[plowhog]

Except the Beech B55 Baron twin, I sold every airplane I had owned for more money than I paid to buy it. My mistake with the Baron was I paid too much for it to start with.

 

[Old Red]

I have been flying for about 10 years. Bad weather made me stay in Disney one extra day and a few days at my mothers.

If your not willing to rent a car and drive home, then don't do it.

One other thing, if ATC ask you if you have weather in the plane, thats code for you are likely going to die if you proceed.

How far did you fly to get to disney? What plane did you fly to get there? We go to orlando twice a year, the gulf usually 2 times a year, mountains once a year, and I have monthly meetings 3 hours away by car. When you go to a busy place like Orlando, do you fly in those airports that have all that traffic or somewhere else? How friendly are those places to little trainer planes and what not?

 

[MossRoad]

Except the Beech B55 Baron twin, I sold every airplane I had owned for more money than I paid to buy it. My mistake with the Baron was I paid too much for it to start with.

Today, the Baron runs around $1.4M.... :shocked:

Controller.com | BEECHCRAFT G58 BARON For Sale - 18 Listings - Page 1.

 

[MossRoad]

How far did you fly to get to disney? What plane did you fly to get there? We go to orlando twice a year, the gulf usually 2 times a year, mountains once a year, and I have monthly meetings 3 hours away by car. When you go to a busy place like Orlando, do you fly in those airports that have all that traffic or somewhere else? How friendly are those places to little trainer planes and what not?

That's one more thing to think about when learning to fly. There's several small, quiet, airports around here that you think would be a great place to learn to fly. No tower. Little to no traffic. You basically just announce that you are in the area and hope the others hear you and rely on that and visual identification. However, small airports without towers don't teach you anything about playing in traffic, so-to-speak... how to listen, understand, and speak to air traffic control. Learning to fly at an airport with a tower and moderate traffic, in my opinion and not being a pilot, would be extremely advantageous for the places that you are thinking about flying into.

 

[mark02tj]

Got my ticket back in '01. Got the itch when I was doing a job in Illinois that there was no good way to get there. It was an 8 hour drive from home, or fly to Chicago and drive which also made the total trip 8 hours. There was a little general aviation airport about 10 minutes from the client site and I figured out it would take about 3 hours of flying time to get there. My "plan" was that I'd learn to fly and it would open up all sorts of new business opportunities. :laughing:

I did fly for business from time to time (but had long since finished the IL job when I got my ticket). It was never practical to do so though. As others have mentioned, there is generally a "daily minimum" when you rent. Plus, you have to arrange for transportation at the client's end of things - either rent a car or they pick you up. I did have one client that was actually based on an airport - an old AF base with 12,000' runways. I learned to "land long" there so avoid having to taxi a half-mile to the first taxiway in the Cessna 150 I was renting. They still had a National Guard refueling unit based there. One day I had to wait for a while to take off as the tanker was doing touch and go's and I had to wait in order to avoid the wake turbulence.

Did fly some for pleasure trips - a couple of times to WV for family reunions (turned a 5 hour drive into less than a 2 hour flight) and also a day trip here and there. Mostly it was $100 hamburgers though. When my niece got married in the SF Bay area, I rented a Citabria and an instructor and took a flight out over SF Bay, over the Golden Gate and then up the coast to the Napa/Sonoma area! GREAT time!! Last time I flew was in October of 2007 when Sweetie and I were in Key West. Took a C-172 out over the Keys for an hour or so. Another great time.

I also used to take a lot of kids up for "Young Eagle" flights at the airport's annual fly-in and pancake breakfast. Lots of great kids!! I found out a couple of years ago that one kid I took up ended up being a commercial helicopter pilot and is now flying oil rig duty in the Gulf. His mom told me that he said he owed it all to me!

Sweetie and I's first date was a flight in a '46 J-3. I heard that chicks dig pilots and I guess it was true!! :laughing: Sadly, she has some health issues now and no interest in flying - or in me taking it back up again. That's OK - it was a great experience and I'm content using my tractor now. Although, some days I do get the itch to head down to the airport and take an "introductory flight" again.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

How far did you fly to get to disney? What plane did you fly to get there? We go to orlando twice a year, the gulf usually 2 times a year, mountains once a year, and I have monthly meetings 3 hours away by car. When you go to a busy place like Orlando, do you fly in those airports that have all that traffic or somewhere else? How friendly are those places to little trainer planes and what not?

I live just north of Mobile, AL. I flew my 172s. Not sure about the time, I think about 4 hours total. Going down I had a ground speed of 166kts, so had a real good tail wind. The airport we flew into was Kissimmee. from there it was an easy taxi ride to Disney.

 

[Old Red]

Got my ticket back in '01. Got the itch when I was doing a job in Illinois that there was no good way to get there. It was an 8 hour drive from home, or fly to Chicago and drive which also made the total trip 8 hours. There was a little general aviation airport about 10 minutes from the client site and I figured out it would take about 3 hours of flying time to get there. My "plan" was that I'd learn to fly and it would open up all sorts of new business opportunities. :laughing:

I did fly for business from time to time (but had long since finished the IL job when I got my ticket). It was never practical to do so though. As others have mentioned, there is generally a "daily minimum" when you rent. Plus, you have to arrange for transportation at the client's end of things - either rent a car or they pick you up. I did have one client that was actually based on an airport - an old AF base with 12,000' runways. I learned to "land long" there so avoid having to taxi a half-mile to the first taxiway in the Cessna 150 I was renting. They still had a National Guard refueling unit based there. One day I had to wait for a while to take off as the tanker was doing touch and go's and I had to wait in order to avoid the wake turbulence.

Did fly some for pleasure trips - a couple of times to WV for family reunions (turned a 5 hour drive into less than a 2 hour flight) and also a day trip here and there. Mostly it was $100 hamburgers though. When my niece got married in the SF Bay area, I rented a Citabria and an instructor and took a flight out over SF Bay, over the Golden Gate and then up the coast to the Napa/Sonoma area! GREAT time!! Last time I flew was in October of 2007 when Sweetie and I were in Key West. Took a C-172 out over the Keys for an hour or so. Another great time.

I also used to take a lot of kids up for "Young Eagle" flights at the airport's annual fly-in and pancake breakfast. Lots of great kids!! I found out a couple of years ago that one kid I took up ended up being a commercial helicopter pilot and is now flying oil rig duty in the Gulf. His mom told me that he said he owed it all to me!

Sweetie and I's first date was a flight in a '46 J-3. I heard that chicks dig pilots and I guess it was true!! :laughing: Sadly, she has some health issues now and no interest in flying - or in me taking it back up again. That's OK - it was a great experience and I'm content using my tractor now. Although, some days I do get the itch to head down to the airport and take an "introductory flight" again.

Did you ever own a plane? What I am finding are those pilots who do not own planes find the least benefit in having their license. Renting a plane turns into what turn out to be meaningless 100 dollar hamburger runs.

I still don't know. Yesterday evening went and spent some time with my friend on his two planes. His Piper 180 and 6-300 planes. Showing me around and looking at all the buttons and gauges and what not. We did not go up as it was too rough. I guess my next thing is going up and seeing how sick I get. Again, this idea...and plan....is to own a plane and travel. We love travel and getting away....and as we get older we do it a lot more and every chance we get. But if it is a pain in the rear and no fun to fly places in these little single engines to places then I'm out. I guess I can just get my license and go from there.

 

[Spiros]

Hey Old Red,
You might consider learning to fly gliders first. Nothing like good old stick and rudder training to wow your powered flight instructors later. Powered flight instruction is about $125 to $175 per hour with around 40 hours required for licensing. Glider training averages out to about $30 to $50 per hour.
We fly out of Wynne, Arkansas, Memphis Soaring Society. Also for building hours in powered flight one option is to purchase a C150 for around $15k and build your hours for your ticket, then sell when you get your SEL rating.

 

[Old Red]

Hey Old Red,
You might consider learning to fly gliders first. Nothing like good old stick and rudder training to wow your powered flight instructors later. Powered flight instruction is about $125 to $175 per hour with around 40 hours required for licensing. Glider training averages out to about $30 to $50 per hour.
We fly out of Wynne, Arkansas, Memphis Soaring Society. Also for building hours in powered flight one option is to purchase a C150 for around $15k and build your hours for your ticket, then sell when you get your SEL rating.

My apologies but I don't know what the acronyms are. What is SEL rating? Single Engine License? What is a C150? Glider? Like no engine? I have no idea if any of that happens around here?

Also when you say build your hours for your ticket....please explain? Would this be time in the air without an instructor by myself? Doing the maneuvers I need to do?