petrolero
Pattern Altitude
Go fly! Ground school is great, but it is in no way a prerequisite to jumping into an airplane with an instructor and just going flying. My bet is that you have read a lot about flying already, but even if you haven't you can still go out and get started.
In my case, I walked into an FBO/rental place and asked what it takes to fly (this is pre-interweb). I walked out after the conversation with some books and a FAR/AIM and an appointment to come back and fly. I was shocked that you didn't have to do anything special to go fly. You are *much* farther along than I was.
My vote is just to go talk to a flight school and work with them to figure out what to do. Everyone learns differently. But go fly! The rest will come.
As far as accident stats go... try not to do what those guys did and you'll be OK. Not trying to be flippant. Pilots try to learn from accidents. We argue (ad nauseum) about them on this board all the time but it's for a larger reason.
Day, high VFR, over land, lots of fuel, light winds, no thunderstorms, no mountains, no hot-dogging/stupid stuff, no drugs or alcohol, in a well maintained aircraft. There is is still risk even with those parameters, but flying by those criteria would eliminate a whole bunch of those accidents that people see in the stats. And that's where we start our flying - with really fat safety margins. We only take on things like IFR or night or mountains with the right training, experience, and gear in order to keep those safety margins nice and fat.
Guys that don't check the weather and fly into IMC or thunderstorms. Guys doing idiotic low-altitude maneuvers... flying into the mountains in a low-performance airplane untrained... all of this and many more completely and easily avoidable accidents are in those stats that your wife has probably seen. So tell yourself... and her... that you will not be 'that guy' and stick to it.
In my case, I walked into an FBO/rental place and asked what it takes to fly (this is pre-interweb). I walked out after the conversation with some books and a FAR/AIM and an appointment to come back and fly. I was shocked that you didn't have to do anything special to go fly. You are *much* farther along than I was.
My vote is just to go talk to a flight school and work with them to figure out what to do. Everyone learns differently. But go fly! The rest will come.
As far as accident stats go... try not to do what those guys did and you'll be OK. Not trying to be flippant. Pilots try to learn from accidents. We argue (ad nauseum) about them on this board all the time but it's for a larger reason.
Day, high VFR, over land, lots of fuel, light winds, no thunderstorms, no mountains, no hot-dogging/stupid stuff, no drugs or alcohol, in a well maintained aircraft. There is is still risk even with those parameters, but flying by those criteria would eliminate a whole bunch of those accidents that people see in the stats. And that's where we start our flying - with really fat safety margins. We only take on things like IFR or night or mountains with the right training, experience, and gear in order to keep those safety margins nice and fat.
Guys that don't check the weather and fly into IMC or thunderstorms. Guys doing idiotic low-altitude maneuvers... flying into the mountains in a low-performance airplane untrained... all of this and many more completely and easily avoidable accidents are in those stats that your wife has probably seen. So tell yourself... and her... that you will not be 'that guy' and stick to it.
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