Does anyone here fly?

[God of Thunder]

Thursday I take my first hour to get my private pilots license. Just curious if anyone here has theirs and/or flies to try and see if anyone I meet there, might be someone on here.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Dayze

I think Buelher and ReRun are pilots.

Buelher pretty much has to be.

[notorious]

Yes.


I instructed for about 5 years, did some 135, and pilot service.


Here are a few tips to make your instructor happy:

1. Show up 15-30 minutes early and have the plane preflighted BEFORE your scheduled lesson.

2. Ask questions, no matter how stupid you think they are.

3. When you do your first power-on stall, don't try to take it vertical. Take it nice and easy pulling up.

4. Read. It's much easier (and cheaper) to learn IN the plane when you already have the raw info memorized.

Have fun.

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by morphius

I fall with style.

Likewise

[loochy]

Take care to not break apart in mid air. That would be SCARY

[Scaga]

Don't fly, but do work for Cessna.
Want to buy a plane?

[Donger]

I know how to fly (never had one lesson!) and my buddy lets me fly his plane every once in a while.

[DJ's left nut]

I took lessons for awhile and got to the point where I was ready for my final solo flight but I fell out of practice and ended up far enough from where I was that the climb back uphill just didn't seem worth the reward.

If you're going to spend the money on the lessons, it's because this is going to be a primary hobby of yours and not just something you do every few months.

It's a very hard skill to keep up and it's not cheap. I enjoyed it but realized that I just wasn't going to do it often enough to stay safe in the process. It was going to get real dangerous, real fast if I handled it in the same weekend warrior fashion that I handle softball, golf and most of my other hobbies.

The payoff seems incredible and I enjoyed flight time, but in the end I really didn't have time to dedicate to the climb.

[saphojunkie]

I don't fly, but my good friend is an air traffic controller.

Two things I know from him:

1. ATC guys are all semi-functioning alcoholic conservative gun lovers.
2. Private pilots are moments from killing themselves and others 99% of the time.

[saphojunkie]

Originally Posted by Donger

I know how to fly (never had one lesson!) and my buddy lets me fly his plane every once in a while.

That shit better run on solar, pal.

[BIG_DADDY]

Got through a good portion of it when the markets got hit in 2008 and then got caught up in my business and never went back. I enjoyed it a lot and would like to go back and finish one day. There is no way that will happen anytime soon though. WAY too many pots on the stove.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by saphojunkie

2. Private pilots are moments from killing themselves and others 99% of the time.

Pft.

99% of the time it's harder to kill yourself in a private plane than it is in your kitchen.

You really really have to **** up to knock your average Cessna out of the sky. They weigh as much as a shoe and have the glide ratio of cottonwood seeds. My instructor reached over and pulled the carb heat to kill the motor without telling me on one of my early flights because it takes a solid 5 minutes of you fumbling around like a dipshit before you reach critical mass from 8,000 feet or so.

Airplane aerodynamics are what they are - keep the wings attached and chances are you're going to remain in very good shape.

If you go on a 3 hour flight, you'll have maybe 10 minutes where you can even see another aircraft, let alone be anywhere near one. Storms are generally easy to plan around and/or see and simply sidestep.

The only part that ever made me nervous was landing, but it made me damn nervous. I never got very good at it at all. I sucked at the flare, I'd get jittery over cross-winds ("WTF do you mean, 'tilt the wings'?!?!")and I'll be goddamned if I'm ever going to do a slip maneuver again.

I'd have gotten there, but the moment I got past the nerves on most of that stuff, I hit a run of jury trials and responsibility changes and by the time I got back into lessons, the nerves had returned and I was just too frustrated and busy to battle through it.

[Beef Supreme]

I took some lessons, but didn't finish. My dad built a bi-plane from a blueprint when I was a kid, flew it for many years, sold it, and bought a different plane later. I would likely have inherited that plane had I got my license. But I couldn't afford the hanger fees, or all of the yearly fees associated with maintaining a license. And I really couldn't even afford the lessons. My dad sold the plane last year.

[LiveSteam]

In my previous life. I was Baron Von Richthofen

[Molitoth]

One time I was banging this chick on coke and whiskey when I had an early morning flight creep up on me. Something went wrong and I had to fly the plane upside down for awhile. We crashed, but I was ok.

I had to quit flying after that.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by notorious

Yes.
I instructed for about 5 years, did some 135, and pilot service.

Question:

I've always had a theory that some people can 'pilot' stuff in general and some just can't. For instance, I'm pretty comfortable operating just about anything that has a seat. I've loved waverunners/jetskis since I was 8. I could drive our boat by 13. I'm a pretty good motorcycle rider (first time I ever rode one was the one I bought brand new) and hell, I've even spent summers on Kobotas and John Deeres.

Some people just have a natural inclination towards operating vehicles and I felt that was why I took to most piloting stuff pretty easily (my instructor was comfortable enough to have me take-off and do the basic maneuvers on my 2nd time in the plane and first time in the front seat).

So where I ended with was "if you can ride a motorcycle, you can fly a plane".

You buy it? Do you think there's a set of universal skills as an vehicle operator that makes one a decent pilot? Or do you think someone can be a poor driver but a good pilot?