The Realization

I have recently had a complete paradigm shift in my thinking what I can do after I get a pilot certificate. This change came about after meeting a new production manager named Brian that was hired at the company I work at. His father was in the Army Air Corp in World War II and has been flying ever since so Brian was raised around aviation. When we met at work he told me that he had heard I was into aviation. I told him that I build and fly the little RC ones and had always thought about getting my pilots license, but didn’t want to just spend a ton of money on plane rentals afterwards. He quickly added “Why don’t you just build your OWN plane then?” I had never really considered building and flying my own plane. Isn’t that just a very few nutcases out in their garage banging some crate together and going out and killing themselves on the first attempt at a flight? I joined EAA and learned that it is not just a very few nut cases, but a whole lot of nut cases. I also learned that they are not just banging together a crate, but building high quality, high tech aircraft, some from scratch, some from proven, high accuracy kits. These guys were not going out and killing themselves on the first flight, but having FAA inspections, performing extensive flight testing, and getting planes certified then flying them just like any other general aviation airplane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebuilt_aircraft

I started working with Brian, who was building a plane for his father. The plane that we are building is a Zenith CH701 STOL. This is a fantastic, high quality kit by Chris Heintz.

I’m not sure what I’ll build or if I’ll try to buy a production aircraft at some time. Either way I figured it was time to pursue my dream of flying and start looking for a flight school.