Wow Andrew, nice job! I bet there's not a lot of people on here who got 200 hours and aren't getting paid to fly.
Let's see here... yeah, I'm about 5 short of flying 200 hours this year. Darn.
Wait a minute... Did you not have the T182 at the beginning of 2008? Or did you buy another airplane?
That's what I was wondering! I remember the post about test flying a Malibu, but I didn't see anything about purchasing one! Details!
It sounds like overall people did things fairly similar to me - put in a bunch of goals, and achieved a more than reasonable number of them. Let me see here for me:
1) Finish my PPL ASEL
PASSED on March 22nd
2) Buy a plane
FAILED but this one is just barely a failed... hoping to take delivery within a week
3) Get my AMEL
FAILED but not for lack of trying. The opportunities that were promised to arise did not, but it will end up being for the best since I wouldn't have had any opportunity to get MEL time, so I'm not heartbroken on this one.
4) Fly to Gastons
FAILED but tried! No instrument rating, although that would not have been a guarantee (and would have been difficult to get within 2 months of finishing my PPL)
5) Start on my IR (finish if possible)
PASSED with and then some. IR check ride passed August 9th - just over 4 months after passing my private
6) Make a summer trip flying my plane to California and back while making stops along the way to visit people (hopefully with a new copilot). This will require at minimum 1 and 2 (or else 1 and get permission for taking the club plane for a few weeks...)
FAILED this one was too aggressive, mainly due to vacation schedule (or lack thereof), nevermind that I failed at buying the plane.
7) While in California, take my friend flying who told me the other day she always wanted to be a pilot, but has never been in a GA aircraft. Let her taste flight and get her hooked
FAILED since the trip was never made, but she definitely wants to go flying with me sometime
8) Expose new people to flying, and encourage people to get their PPL (already doing that second bit)
PASSED I've given first rides to probably about 10 people, and was featured in the TV story at 6Y9 this year, which seemed to be a very positive for GA
What wasn't on here was meeting all the PoA people I did (and am ever so glad to have met), getting my complex and high performance endorsements, going to Osh, going to Tony's graduation party, participating in Animal Rescue Flights and a number of other things that I can't remember now. It was definitely a successful year.
So let's see, aviation goals for 2009:
1) Buy/take delivery on my plane
2) Get CP-AMEL
3) Get CP-ASEL
4) Get CFI
5) Get CFII
6) Get MEI
7) Fly plane to as many PoA fly-ins as possible
8) Continue working with Animal Rescue Flights (and hopefully get others to participate)
9) Get started working with Angel Flight
More aggressive goals, we'll see how these work out.
