Sun n Fun Mission

I won't be flying this week, at least not in the Diamond. I've got a few days traveling for business then I'm heading to Lakeland Florida for the 35th annual Sun-n-Fun fly in. I'll be reporting on the event beginning Wednesday evening for my local EAA chapter 174 based at Clermont County airport. Check back often late this week or you can follow me at @dalecraven on Twitter where I make frequent updates as long as I can get a wifi signal.

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.

The Beginning

The attraction to flying for me began when I was invited, with a group of other youths, for an informal flight training introduction that was hosted by an individual pilot. I was about 15 years old at the time. We were able to get a couple classroom sessions talking about flight dynamics and weather and I got to go out on a couple flying sessions. On one of the sessions, I sat in the right seat of a Cessna 182 and had the opportunity to take the controls for a short time. I loved the thrill and excitement of the flight, I still remember the tail number N2446G. The class ended abruptly when the pilot had a medical problem and the classes ended.
I didn’t do much else with aviation, but I was always on the fringes over the next couple decades. In High school I took another flight with a group from University of Cincinnati. I also began building a gyrocopter with information that I got from the Cincinnati Rotorcraft Club. I got the frame built and had my engine case, but I stopped when I got to the expensive parts (rotor head and blades and building the engine). In the late 80’s I took up radio control airplane building and flying and I also got hooked on skydiving! I met a lot of aviation buffs and pilots along the way, but I never took the step of starting my flying lessons. I realized early on that if I was ever going to learn to fly, I would want to have the money for the lessons saved up front and make a serious commitment to the training. Whenever I would start to consider it, I would just think of the expense of the training and say to myself, “then what will I do, go rent a plane every so often and get a $100 hamburger?

Getting Started

I have dreamed about getting my pilot's license for a long time, and I'm finally ready to get started. I have actually been actively working on this for a few months now, but I am now ready to start with my lessons. I'll detail my progress up to this point in the next few posts. Then as I go through my training, I'll update the blog for each lesson.