Licensed pilots

[Snake]

I was wondering how manyPilots we have out here and what your ratted for.
I have a couple of hours of stick time in a Cesna and in gliders. I don't have my license but I going join the only soaring club in the state and train for my llicense flying gliders. I have flown gliders before and realy enjoy the silent flying and the challenge of staying up as long as you can.
If anyone else out there flys or has flown please share your experiences.

[CC Cowboy]

I flew for years with my dad. I started in third grade and we had a few different planes until I when to college. I was too much into bikes but my dad flew his until life.

[Snake]

Cool! Thanks for sharing your story @CC Cowboy.
I have decided to get my glider pilots license during 2014 flying season.

[adouglas]

I've always been fascinated by aviation and aerospace. Grew up during the space race and it was awesome.

At age 12 or 13 I got my first ride in a Cessna 182, at a county fair in Connecticut (the fairgrounds were across the street from the airport... located on the site of what is now the Danbury Fair Mall).

I was hooked. I joined the Civil Air Patrol. I kept the dream alive.

The guy down the street was building a Coot in his garage. I got interested in the possibility of homebuilding.

In my mid-20s I decided I'd better do something about this whole flying thing. I got my private pilot's license.

I helped in some homebuilt projects with the local EAA chapter.

Within a year of two of getting my license, I got a job as associate editor at Aviation Safety magazine. I was with that publishing company for about 10 years.

I got to fly the company Mooney. They paid for my instrument rating.


I got to go to Oshkosh in 1987, as warm-body booth staff for Bel-Ray oil. That was the year that Voyager flew around the world and it was there.

I'm now ASEL, complex, private, instrument rated.

I haven't flown in years. Too expensive to do on my own and I left the publishing company so I'm no longer subsidized.

Total time is something like 450 hours.

Some of my time flying, and particularly on instruments, generated memories that will last a lifetime. Shooting an ILS to minimums in fog and seeing the runway just as my hand was reaching for the throttle to go around. Having my bag float around mid-air flying through moderate-to-severe turbulence. Shooting an approach into White Plains in a snowstorm. Canceling my instrument clearance and blasting off VFR to beat an approaching storm front with just a few minutes to spare. Landing at Washington National (now Reagan), having to practically dive to the runway to accommodate the controllers. Flying over Pearl Harbor and doing touch-and-goes at Ford Island (Banzai!). Flying down the Hudson VFR corridor, below the top floor level of the World Trade Center. Flying to Rochester at night over a cloud deck, with stars above and pools of light below from the towns. Flying from Maine to New York on July 4 at night, seeing all the fireworks displays from above. Doing a back-course approach into Nantucket (incredibly disorienting). Taking off after a week of gray November drizzle and popping out on top in the beautiful golden light of sunset, knowing that the mere mortals below were trapped in that gray, cold world....

I miss it terribly.

"High Flight" chokes me up every time I read it. It is completely true, every word.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

[Alex]

[Jono]

I want to eventually get a sport pilot license. And maybe someday own a Piper Cub.

[Snake]

Cool story @adouglas. The high cost of flying a powered aircraft is the reason why I am getting my glider pilot license. After joining the club the cost is $40 for the towplane to tow you up to 3,000 feet. After that its all up to the updrafts and your skills as a pilot to stay up as long as you can.

[greg737]

In 1987 I was 23 years old and pretty much directionless. I was getting a degree in Computer Science that I had no desire to use. Managed to get accepted to the Air Force for officer training with a pilot slot follow-on.

Things worked out... I flew for the Air Force for 20 years (first in the active duty then in the Air National Guard) and I've been flying for a major airline for over 13 years now.

T-41, T-37, T-38, C-21, KC-135 and lots of 737s (-200, -300, -500, -700, -800)

ATP (Airline Transport Pilot)

I have a bit of Blanik L-13 time, ridge-line soaring and acrobatics (before that proved to be a really bad idea).

[Snake]

All these stories are a great encouragement for me to get my license and prove that you are never too old to pursue your dreams.
As a footnote, I was in The Air Force for 4 years and served as an aircraft mechanic on A-10 Warthogs. The tank killers.

[250rr]

I started flying in 1989. Own a Pitts Special with a friend. I compete in aerobatic competitions, and have since 1993 (with one break to make more money!).

900 ish hours. I have more tail dragger time than tricycle gear time. Rare these days.

[Snake]

Originally Posted by 250rr

I started flying in 1989. Own a Pitts Special with a friend. I compete in aerobatic competitions, and have since 1993 (with one break to make more money!).

900 ish hours. I have more tail dragger time than tricycle gear time. Rare these days.

Awesome Mark. Takes a very skilled pilot to take-off and land a tail-dragger.

[Kokosun]

I've got a couple of hundred hours in a range of light aircraft, but mainly the standard 152's and 172's. I used to fly a PA-28 a bit and also a DA-20 (which I liked a lot). I learned to fly in the 90's when I lived in TX, but I also flew in MA and CA. I used to love summer evening flights from PAFC (Palo Alto) out over the Pacific.

But, I don't fly now. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford to. Flying is very much a rich man's game in the UK ... and I'm not a rich man.

[250rr]

Originally Posted by Snake

Awesome Mark. Takes a very skilled pilot to take-off and land a tail-dragger.

That's one way to look at it. A friend who is a pilot asked me what I was doing sitting their idling before taking off, "Are you building up courage?" He asked this because of the challenging reputation of the Pitts on landing. I told him, "No. I'm building up stupidity". Have to say I have done the same thing on the cycle of the motor variety.

[250rr]

Originally Posted by Kokosun

I've got a couple of hundred hours in a range of light aircraft, but mainly the standard 152's and 172's. I used to fly a PA-28 a bit and also a DA-20 (which I liked a lot). I learned to fly in the 90's when I lived in TX, but I also flew in MA and CA. I used to love summer evening flights from PAFC (Palo Alto) out over the Pacific.

But, I don't fly now. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford to. Flying is very much a rich man's game in the UK ... and I'm not a rich man.

We are very very lucky in the US. It is one of the only countries on earth (Australia may be the other) that you don't have to be independently wealthy to own an airplane. It has been a battle to keep regulations reasonable here. So far, we've done it. We'll see if that continues.

Don't get me wrong, it is insanely expensive. However, I have several friends who work a 40 hour a week job (include me in this category) that own airplanes they built themselves.

Full disclosure: I didn't build my airplane. Bought it from someone who did, however.

[adouglas]

Favorite planes...

I loved the Mooney.

For fixed gear, I really liked the Grumman Tiger. Great aircraft.

I've put in my share of hours in Cessnas and Pipers, but never really liked either of them all that much.

I also kind of enjoyed the Aerospatiale airplanes, but not as much as the Grumman.

I stopped flying before the new generation of composite planes arrived (Cirrus, Diamond, etc.)

Always wanted to fly a Bonanza but never got the chance.

[Kokosun]

Originally Posted by 250rr

That's one way to look at it. A friend who is a pilot asked me what I was doing sitting their idling before taking off, "Are you building up courage?" He asked this because of the challenging reputation of the Pitts on landing. I told him, "No. I'm building up stupidity". Have to say I have done the same thing on the cycle of the motor variety.

I always wanted to fly a Pitts. Shortly after I left TX, a colleague bought a share in one, I think just to make me jealous.

If I ever get to Portland, I'll look you up. But, don't worry. I can't see that happening anytime soon.

[250rr]

Originally Posted by Kokosun

I always wanted to fly a Pitts. Shortly after I left TX, a colleague bought a share in one, I think just to make me jealous.

If I ever get to Portland, I'll look you up. But, don't worry. I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Please do look me up. However, I must warn you, my Pitts is a one-holer. I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but you will not be sitting on my lap for a ride. Unless you pay me enough.

[Kokosun]

Originally Posted by 250rr

Please do look me up. However, I must warn you, my Pitts is a one-holer. I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but you will not be sitting on my lap for a ride. Unless you pay me enough.

LOL. No. I don't think I want to go for a ride in your lap. I'd like to fly a Pitts, but not that much.

[Snake]

Update:
I finally got my private glider pilot license. I took the oral and practical on Saturday!

IMG_0645.jpg

[Dave Wolfe]

Congrats!

[Snake]

Thank you!

[CaliGrrl]

Congrats!!

[Kokosun]

Congratulations! There's nothing quite like that feeling of knowing that you are ... a pilot!

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

[taz]

CONGRATS