qbynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2007
- Messages
- 353
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Qbynewbie
Hi Brian, it's nice to have you here. I always enjoy your posts on the other forums. If you have time, why don't you start an intro thread and tell us about yourself.
I have immense respect for Diana so I try to do what she asks, even when it's a bit embarrassing... Actually, I recognize many of the names here from the Red and Purple Boards. But many names are unfamiliar. I always assume those are the good friends I simply haven't met yet.
As the title says, I'm one of America's oldest newbies. Not that I'm THAT old -- I'm only 54. But it took me 35 years and 9 months from first flight to solo and I haven't yet found anyone who took longer than that.
My first flight was in June, 1972. I was a very poor college student with just enough money for six lessons. Once those were over and the money was gone, I told myself that I'd do that again "some day". Some day came last summer, when I was driving down a deserted county road past the same small airport where I had taken those lessons so long ago. I stopped the car in the middle of the road, turned around and went back to the airport. 20 minutes later, Kyle (my new CFI) and I were preflighting a 172. How little did he know what he was getting into!
When I was 17, flying was easy. At 53, I showed a truly remarkable lack of aptitude for mastering the last five seconds of the landing process. Kyle sat through what seemed like thousands of bad landings but I guess were merely only dozens and dozens and dozens.
I travel extensively for work, in the US and Canada. That gave me a chance to distribute the pain around a bit to other CFIs in Oregon, California, Massachusetts and Hawaii. Joe Areeda was really recommended, so I contacted him last Fall and have spent quite a few days under his tutelage. I think he, too, was shaking his head wondering what the heck he'd agreed to.
Finally, one day in February, I made decent landing at KGFL (Glens Falls, NY). Kyle turned to me and said "where the heck did that come from?" I repeated the process a couple more times and we realized that somehow, magically and mysteriously, I'd finally learned how to land a 172. Now I only make bad landings every third or fourth time.
I soloed last Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pm at GFL. It was a beautiful spring day and my normally deserted airport was chock full of planes, including a couple without radios and a really beautiful biplane. Somehow, Kyle was silly enough to think he should let me loose anyway. Some of my family were there and I managed to do the traditional three touch and goes without killing anyone, although I'm sure a few people in the pattern must have been at least a little alarmed.
Last Tuesday, after a few more T&Gs, Kyle asked me to drop him off and "go fly somewhere". I asked him where and he said "I don't care. Go have fun but be back well before dark." I asked what I should do and the response was "I don't care. Go have fun. No stalls or emergency landings. No slips to a landing solo yet. Just have fun."
So there I was. For the first time in my life, someone was completely nuts enough to give me an airplane and tell me to go have fun. And I did.
That's the whole story of the first 35 years and 9 months of my flying career. I hope to be ready for a checkride this summer and then, sooner or later, go on for an IR.