First flight (in 19 years)

Woohoo!!!! I got off the ground :) When I woke up this morning I looked outside, and it didn't look good. Lots of low clouds and a bit of rain. I drove to the airport though, and over there, it was much better. Still hazy though. I met the CFI, went through the preflight procedures, and off we went. He gave me some headings & altitudes to fly to. Then he had me do a right & left 360 degree turn. He seemed satisfied with my control of the plane. We were going to do stalls, but because of the haze & clouds he decided to stay low and have me practice touch & gos. It really does come back. The first one I did, he had his hand on the throttle. Then I did the next 4 on my own. They all went well except the next to last one, he had me put on full flaps. We were about 15-20ft off the runway, and I was losing airspeed. Then came the stall warning. He told me to nose down because of the stall, and we came down a bit hard. But other than that, it was pretty good :)

After the flight, I asked him if he had a feel for how much time I would need to solo. I thought it would take 7 or so hours since it had been 19 years since I flew. He surprised me by saying it would only take another couple of flights and whenever I was comfortable to do it. I am a little nervous about that, but I did think I did well - in the limited controlled environment that I was in. I need to get more practice so that the coordination of pitch, roll, rudder, throttle, radio work, & scanning the skies becomes more natural. Right now it requires a lot of thought.

One thing that would be nice... if someone made a high res scenery add-on to Flight Sim of the Houston area. It would be nice to learn the area from the air. I would also like a sectional of the Houston area to start learning where all the airspace restrictions are.

My next flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning. But that may change if the weather does not allow us to fly higher like what happened this morning.

CFI Switch

With the CFI I planned on using I would be flying in the evenings. I realized this would conflict with other things, and also I happened to notice that every day around here there are afternoon thunderstorms. So I could see a lot of rescheduling happening. I want to be able to stick to 2-3 flights/wk, so I found another CFI who can train in the mornings. I'll start next Tuesday :)

Hello everyone

I am about to get started on something I've been wanting to do all my life... Get my pilot's license. I hope this blog will inspire others to do the same, or at least be interesting to people interested in flying.

My path to flying actually started 25 years ago when I was 15 (yup - I'm an old fart now). My uncle paid to have me take a couple of flying lessons, and said he would pay for more for each A I got on my report card. Well I wasn't an A student, and if you're going to learn to fly you have to do it regularly. But he definitely planted the flying bug firmly within me. I used money from a grocery job to pay for flying lessons after school (unknown to my parents). I was short on money though and had to stop. A few years later when I was in college, I took it up again. I achieved my solo license, but again had to stop because of lack of funds. I decided to wait until I had a good paying job and was able to get through the whole thing without having to stop for funds.

Well here I am 25 years later, and finally ready to get my pilot's license. I found a highly qualified instructor, who teaches for a decent rate. Then I registered with a local flying club so that I could rent planes. Their lower rate training planes are a Cessna 150 and a Cessna 172. I was hoping I could train in the 150 (cheaper), so I could train more often. But was told I'd have to find a thinner instructor since both of us could stand to lose some weight. So the C172 it is...

Then I find out he just happens to be going on vacation for 2 weeks... Doh! I can't wait to get started!!!