Considering PPL

Go fly! Ground school is great, but it is in no way a prerequisite to jumping into an airplane with an instructor and just going flying. My bet is that you have read a lot about flying already, but even if you haven't you can still go out and get started.

In my case, I walked into an FBO/rental place and asked what it takes to fly (this is pre-interweb). I walked out after the conversation with some books and a FAR/AIM and an appointment to come back and fly. I was shocked that you didn't have to do anything special to go fly. You are *much* farther along than I was.

My vote is just to go talk to a flight school and work with them to figure out what to do. Everyone learns differently. But go fly! The rest will come.

As far as accident stats go... try not to do what those guys did and you'll be OK. Not trying to be flippant. Pilots try to learn from accidents. We argue (ad nauseum) about them on this board all the time but it's for a larger reason.

Day, high VFR, over land, lots of fuel, light winds, no thunderstorms, no mountains, no hot-dogging/stupid stuff, no drugs or alcohol, in a well maintained aircraft. There is is still risk even with those parameters, but flying by those criteria would eliminate a whole bunch of those accidents that people see in the stats. And that's where we start our flying - with really fat safety margins. We only take on things like IFR or night or mountains with the right training, experience, and gear in order to keep those safety margins nice and fat.

Guys that don't check the weather and fly into IMC or thunderstorms. Guys doing idiotic low-altitude maneuvers... flying into the mountains in a low-performance airplane untrained... all of this and many more completely and easily avoidable accidents are in those stats that your wife has probably seen. So tell yourself... and her... that you will not be 'that guy' and stick to it.
 
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Indeed! I broke down and hit my boss up this afternoon since he owns a PA-28-181 ('79). I straight up told him I was going for it since my wife said "Go now, or you will regret later". I don't know of any better endorsement that would come from her on the subject. That's all I need.

So I walked into my boss's office and said 'look, your plane is tied down 4 miles from my house, you aren't flying it more than a couple hours a month, how much would you rent the Archer II.' There was a slight hesitation but he said, 'Let's do this - I can't fall into a part 135 so why don't I make you partner on this plane, add you to the insurance as a student and your share would be $60 (dry) an hour'.

I inquired about hours on the plane (2500) and hours since complete overhaul (250). No glass in the cockpit, '95 BendixKing and an old Garmin. He goes ForeFlight and gauges.

It would seem $60/hr + 9 gal an hour = $100 ~ $110 is a good deal and would shave a bit off training.

What do you guys think?
 
I think this is an excellent opportunity!

Price dry is a bit high, but not that bad. $50 is better, but if the additional covers his increased insurance cost, then $60 is worth it.

And availability can't be beat.

You might have lucked into a good arrangement for when you have the license.
 
That's kind of what I was thinking (..about the $50 too). I can't beg and I appreciated his offer in general, after all, he is my boss and I will end up paying one way or another probably. Ha.

It's not the newest of planes but it looks good and maintained well.

What is considered long in the tooth for hours?
 
Hey all-

First post here on Pilots of America. I have spent the past couple of hours..the past couple of nights... reading up on some of your journeys and adventures of getting your PPL and/or IFR ticket. Some of your check rides give me sweaty palms by virtue of your stress!

So here I am at 38 and a serious arm chair pilot (simmer) for the past 15 years. I am finally in a position financially to where I feel like if this is a goal I want to accomplish - now is the time. I was ready a few years ago but my father (retired USN pilot) and my wife sort of took the the wind out of my sails. Most folks ask why my dad wouldn't drive me towards getting a PPL. Well, his first response is "fly a bug smasher.... really?!". Easy to say for a fella that has accumulated x,000 hours, going 600 knots on others dime! But his real questions were "Where do you plan on going?", "Do you own a plane" and lastly "I dunno, seems kind of risky for a 'just for fun' kind of thing". All solid points which I easy reconcile easily with 'Because I want to fly and it's a calculated risk I am willing to take'. Fair enough. The wife falls under the category of concerned partner consuming too much media coverage on aircraft accidents. I get that perspective as well - yes, inherently not the safest of things but you have to put it in context with everything else we do. I always come back to the motorcycle comparison.

Any way, back to the original topic. I am now considering diving in or at least checking it out and getting the financials in order. One thing is for sure, I have spent almost enough on my simulator cockpit to darn near cover the expense of a PPL. It has been nice to fly with authentic hardware, have some ATC coverage via Vatsim and practice various approaches under specific Wx conditions. Half of my simming group are pilots with hours ranging from 40 to 800 hours or so - but any way I look at it, I feel like I am missing an opportunity to make this journey happen the more I sit around thinking about it. The group I sim with aren't helping much either as they talk about their real world flight earlier in the day on various parts of the globe.

I have been doing some research on various schools... no wait, school.. in Springfield and what I have found is that there isn't aren't a lot of CFI's around here to choose from. After watching enough MzeroA.com videos (Jason Schappert) I know he stresses over and over to find the right CFI for you. Interview the guys / gals. Figure out what there reasons are being a CFI - collecting hours for x goal, for the fun of it etc.

Question 1 - Does any one know of a goof CFI in / around the Springfield area?

Question 2 - Ground school - am I better off doing this at a local college, my local FBO or an online school like mzeroa.com?

I plan on heading over to Pro-Flight Air and having a chat with them just to get a feel of what they have to offer, training plane options and what is out there to rent.

In the meantime, back to the simulator. I am currently hovering over the yoke.

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Benjamin

That is a pretty nice setup
 
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