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Ted, I just chanced upon your thread and skimmed it. I’ve never done a Lemons race but after decades of karting, PCA club racing and some SCCA in open wheel, I’ve discovered Champcar in my old age. A huge amount of fun and amazingly economical (for racing). I did 4 events in ‘21 including the...

I used Aviation Seminars which was good enough prep to get a 92 on the test. For me a great, condensed way to come up the learning curve.

I spotted this plane on a road in South Africa 4-5 years ago (just rediscovered the photo) Anyone know what it is? Can't figure out how to look up a ZU tail number...

I just discovered the SIMiONIC simulators, man these are great! Its sort of incredible that they're so good, let alone for $10. Great button (or Knob) -ology and pretty amazing for simulating holds, intercepts, tracking, approaches.

I just finished 'Stick & Rudder,' and just read this thread prior to sharing my thoughts. I am fairly grouchy about the state of aviation instruction, which, now that I am mostly through my instrument rating, I continue to think is unnecessarily haphazard,ad hoc, and rote. There is really no...

I just attended a weekend cram course from Aviation Seminars. I did all their preliminary prep materials, took three practice tests Monday/Tuesday, took the test Wednesday and got a 90. I am under no illusions that I've learned everything I need to fly IFR, but brute force memorization is for...

probably no help to you if your plans are set, but it seems like a missed opportunity for a pilot not to use the plane to skip around to destinations up and down the coast in a way that avoids the traffic chokepoints. All other considerations aside, I'd rent a place at Ocracoke, then do day...

I've been on automotive message boards since before Mosaic. As an amateur racer, I've always marveled that people will spend ~$100K modifying their street car for speed, handling and bling, (unsafe/unusable on the street) when for a fraction of that money, they could buy a formula Ford and go...

Incredible, and a very shrewd idea. In an effort to add precision to flight tracking, FlightAware has published detailed instructions for hacking together an ADS-B receiver using Rasberry Pi, then adding it to their network. REally clever but also amazing how cheaply you can build a receiver...

Thanks! dying to but the wx here in mid-atlantic is not conducive. Just booked a Cirrus + safety pilot for a Boston meeting in a few weeks so implementing plan!

. Yep, clearly the challenge. My proficiency strategy so far: a) maximize my GA business travel as much as possible, where I rent a plane and a safety pilot. Safety pilot may or may not be a CFI but whether I am PIC or not I'll get more and more instrument exposure. That could get me out...

Seem my other post for a gory description of my own ppl saga, but for what it's worth, after five years and 200+ hours of flying before getting my license, I have re-thought many of my decisions along the way. One of them was switching from 172 to DA40 after ~30-40 hours. If I could do it over...

Just to close out this thread I started: I passed my retest on Friday, so now with 200 hours and almost five years later, I've passed 'step one' in becoming a real pilot! I'm quoting this last post since I basically followed this advice to the letter: booked two solid weeks of no business...

Apologies, but I hesitate to specify location to avoid appearance of blaming specific CFIs or schools. I sincerely think this is my own mismanagement of the process, abetted by naivety regarding the realities of our pilot training system. The flight school/leaseback equipment/timebuilder CFI...

Sinistar, that's great stuff, and a really practical, tactical approach I can use, thanks for that.

Thanks for ongoing comments. I know from the rest of life that nervousness is inversely correlated to preparation. That's really at the core of my question: how best to prepare because what I've done so far isn't cutting it. I have begun searching for a private CFI. Are there directories I...

It's a story that is tangental to the core issue regarding the system, which DenverPilot summarizes above. And I also believe the past is the past, I hope I've learned from it, but don't want to dwell on it or lay blame. I just want to land on the most effective go-forward strategy...

Thanks everyone for all the reactions and opinions. I've been on web forums since before Mosaic debuted and you're all especially generous offering authentic reactions to a first time pseudonymous poster. (you can see by my join date however that i'm a longtime lurker; I signed up after my...

I suspect my situation might be extreme but not completely unheard of. I'm in my late fifties, work in financial services, with plenty of time in the back of business jets and millions of miles in commercial aviation travel. I've always wanted to fly but early on, the economics didn't square...