Monday, March 31, 2008

I'm Back!

Well the trip to Honduras was awesome, Unfortunately I brought back with me some type of bug and I have been sick for a week! I don't have a lot to report on the flying front. I hope to have a big "announcement" in about two weeks! I will say sometimes it seems like you get so close and like a flip of a switch it seems sooo far away. Flying is strange thing! Like the bug I brought back from Honduras It's hard, or impossible to get rid of, once your bitten, your hooked! So I really hope to record some good news here in just a couple of weeks, and I hope to begin a new life as a commercial pilot, rather than a private pilot!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Please Standby...

Well I will be out of the country for a week. I am going on a mission trip to Honduras so it might be a little while before any updates on the flying. I did fly today, which was good the winds picked up while I was aloft so the landing had a pretty stiff crosswind. Made for an interesting time! Fly safe and we'll see you soon!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Smooth air!

Wow, Saturday morning was so nice! I took a friend up for a "fun" flight. The air was cool, and sooo smooth! One of those flights that you just love and could stay up there forever. You know, The kinda feeling that makes us do crazy things like take flight lesson and want to do it (fly) for a living! It's also a lot of fun to take a non-pilot along. My friend was a load master on a C-130, so he knew a little (actually he knew a lot) about flying. It is a lot of fun to teach people things about flying. I think I would enjoy being a CFI (certified flight instructor).
BUT...first things first, I need to finish this commercial rating! Which has been a pain in the butt for me, and now I am at another cross road in my training.

I had a certain amount of funds set aside for the commercial, Well if you have followed this blog you know I have had a couple issues with trying to get my commercial license. So, now I have used up those funds and I still do not have that ticket in hand! So now what do I do? Finance it? Hmm get a loan for the rest of my training, something I really did not want to do! However I do not see to many other options! I found a place In North Carlina that offer a 4 day accelerated course that gets you BOTH your Multi engine commercial and your single engine commercial. Of course Its not cheap, but flight training is not cheap! I guess I'm the most concerned about going out of town again! The first attempt at that was not successful. It is not very fun feeling to get back on that plane without the item you flew half way across the country to get! The number one culprit what the weather, you just cannot control that!
I'm not giving up by any means, Just at that point of trying to decide once again what to do. Flying...You gotta love! My Father-in-law who is also a pilot has a great saying. "if you have time to spare, go by air" There is always something, some kind of delay, some kind of issue. So why do I do it you might be asking. I cannot tell you that, you would just have to experience it, then you would know. Did you know pilots are are only .2% of the total population of the U.S. Approx 570,000 pilots in the U.S.
It's a small crowd for sure, It's interesting to get a group of pilots together. Just a couple days ago I was with a group of pilots, From all walks of life. One was a General in the USAF (retired). We sat and talked pilot to pilot. Other then our age there was not a bit of difference in the two of us, or so it appeared.
Its an interesting endeavour, If you have not tried it yet and are curious GO take a flight somewhere and give it try!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Daunting challenges ahead!

A quote (the title) from Tom's comment on my last entry. Wow, if that isn't the perfect way to look at flight training. Well, once again I had to call my DPE and cancel with him. I arrived at the airport today, and met up with the cfi. We then checked out the plane went back to his office and he say's "well it looks like nice weather today, I think you should go fly!" Mind you I have a practical scheduled for tomorrow! Oh and dont forget I already had to cancel on him once before! I just looked at the guy, I didnt know what to say! Ok, if you dont think I'm ready, Do you think maybe you should have said something oh say 4 days ago which was the last time we flew??? Cancelling on the DPE at the last minute for the second time certianly is not going to make him happy with me! So, once again I'm at a crossroad. I'll have to figure out what to do. Finacially, and where to go next. Do I stick it out with this guy, or try to find another school. The sad thing is this is all to common. I have heard stories like this many times.
Well, I did end up going up today by myself. It was a beautiful day. There was some light chop, and a little gust on the surface, but not to bad! I tried to practice the manuevers, I dont know why but It is just hard to perform them by yourself...at least for me! It seems I can stay more focused with someone sitting next to me.
I bumped into the local CAP squadron commander. He was preflighting to go out and do some fire watch. Here in south texas it's not hard to find the fires, and there are a lot of them lately! Flat, dry and windy. We both took off about the same time and we were only a few minutes into flight and there were two fires out ahead of us. So he took off in the direction of the smoke, and I stayed in the "practice area" The local cap squdron just got a new cessna 182, G1000 equipped. What a set up. I flew a cessan 206 with the G1000 once and talk about nice. Huge moving map screen. traffic alerts, it was fun.
Well, so now I will need to take a couple days to think through my choices. I have two other options, unfortunatly both are out of town! We'll see!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Over the Hill!

Well, My "goal" was not realized. I wanted to get my commercial pilots license by the time I turned 40. Well, the 29th was my birthday and I just couldn't get it done! Of course...I was a leap year baby, which means I have only had 10 birthdays, so by a technicality I could claim I'm not 40 yet and I still have some time to finish! ;-) Actually at this point I just want to get it done. I lost my job in January and decided to work full time on it (the commercial), but now the funds I had to finish it our almost gone and I'm still feeling like I'm not very close to finishing. I'm also just under two weeks away from the Mission trip to Honduras. I will only be there for a week, but that will be one week for sure that I will not be focused on flying!

I had found a cfi that I had hoped would really help me. I don't understand sometimes why so many cfi's want to be passengers. I feel like I'm training myself. I guess its hard to compare cfi's, I was fortunate to have a cfi for my private pilot license who had been flying for over 55years. He had over 30,000 flight hours in general aviation. The two archer's he had, he purchased new and both had 8-9000 hours on them. I had never asked him how many hours of dual given he had. Unfortunately a fight with cancer got the best of him about 5 years ago and Lou is no longer with us! If you had ever flown into (k02) perryville Missouri prior to 2003 then you probably would have met him! He was at the airport 7 days a week. One night a medivac chopper came in. they had just come from a seen of a bad car accident and had a lady on board who was near death. it was late, but Lou was still there. They needed fuel, but company policy was there had to be fire personnel on site when they took on fuel. Well Perryville is a small town in Missouri with a volunteer fire dept several miles away it would have taken a long time to get them on site. So Lou runs inside (yes 72 y/o and he RUNS in side) grabs a fire extinguisher and tells them I am a member of the Perryville fire dept, now fuel the darn helicopter. We never found out the fate of the lady.
If there are any cfi's reading this, all I have to say is be professional, and do your best to really teach flying. I too will probably end up being a "time building" CFI, but I sure Hope that while I'm doing it I give my customers everything they deserve! So here I am with about just enough money to finish up one more flight, and pay for the practical exam and then I will be out. I just hope I can do. It is scheduled for Wednesday, but I do not have the sign off from the cfi yet! If I don't get the endorsement tomorrow I will have to cancel the exam AGAIN, and start re planning what to do next! OH my, don't you just love flying? As my Father in law says, you better love it, if your gonna do it!