How long after you received your PPL did you take passengers?

gdwindowpane

gdwindowpane

Pre-takeoff checklist
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gdwindowpane
I'm getting closer to being ready for my check ride and have been thinking about what I'll do first when I get my PPL. I know this is a very subjective question but how many hours, if any, did you fly solo before you started taking passengers up? Who was your first passenger? Some one you care dearly for or someone you don't particularly like? Lol.

Chris
 
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Took me forty five minutes to fly home from the checkride. The wife met me at the airport and away we went. Been flying together ever since.


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About two weeks and it was a guy I worked with. Flew in loose formation with another friend in his plane and another guy, both of them co-workers. Went to get some fuel and then flew back home having switched passengers for the ride back.
 
I had to look it up but for me it was 3 weeks. took me and a bud and our golf clubs out to the Pinehurst area for a round of golf lol.
 
I don't remember how long I had my PPL before I took a passenger. That was 23 years ago..:rolleyes: I do remember who it was. We flew over Mt Rushmore, Gary video taped the flight. Landed at the Custer state park (3V0) and back to Spearfish SD (SPF).
 
Same or within the next few days took my wife up. 42 years ago. Gawd I'm old lol.
 
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Took my two best friends up the next day.
 
wife + 2 kids that same afternoon. Finished the checkride, went to lunch and came back and few a XC for a touch n go at a field 52 nm away and returned. Flight went well but my wife and daughter were not impressed by the ratted out 172 interior.
 
My wife about couple hours after.
 
A few days. I took my partner up to see her house from the air one evening, then a couple of weeks later we did a day trip to Mackinac Island, my first real XC as a PPL.
 
I took my son for lunch the next day. I had plenty of solo before I got my ticket (I owned my own plane).
 
3 days for me. My wife, who bought me my first 3 lessons for my birthday. She fell asleep on the flight and has been doing that ever since (with some very notable exceptions!),
 
The next day.
My dad, who was visiting for my 30th birthday.
It was the best birthday ever.

We compared notes about the flight years later. He remembers me being calm cool and collected. I remember being terrified of screwing up. :)
 
Does my instructor practicing commercial maneuvers count? If so four days. If that doesn't count then I'll let you know :biggrin:
 
A day or so later. Wanted her to see the inside of the rental plane, so she'd be more appreciative of the plane I just purchased (but hadn't taken possession of yet)!
 
Wife & Daughter. I think it was the first or second flight after the checkride. But that flight was like a week or so later because it was so friggin' cold (-8F) on the check ride day and snow was moving in. My 10yo daughter sat up front. If my wife was nervous in back she did a good job of hiding it.
 
Four days later. It was the next flight after my checkride. Flew one daughter up to Chattanooga and another one back. Swapping them for their week of being spoiled by their grandparents.
 
10 or 15 years, if you don't count other pilots as PAX. Happiness is a one-holer, flying solo, or with another pilot. When I started flying for CAP, I did frequently have some self-loading ballast types, but that was long after I got my PPL.
 
Same day. Took the wife across the Chesapeake bay for dinner.

Tim
 
Was probably a few days later, took my girlfriend (now wife) up for a short trip. Would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. It's kind of like, well it's not just me in here if I screw up, and the only other person that I have flown with was my instructor that could save me from screwing up...here goes! Ha That was a few years ago, I love taking people up, especially ones that have never been in a small airplane.
 
Day after. My then future wife and another couple.

Probably not the smartest thing ever. Was the first time I ever had the Skyhawk loaded with humans in the back and a much more rearward CG.

Was also one of my only barfers. The girl of the couple.

Learned not to feed people frozen pizza for lunch before a flight, check for turbulence for first fights, and most importantly after she told me she gets sick anytime she rides in a car, that one should always gingerly ask new passengers if they have ever experienced car sickness.

Say CAR sickness. Not motion sickness too. Less of a connection in their head to the airplane ride they’re about to take. Subtle but another one of those “ask me how I know” things. :)

I was still a fun day. Learned useful things. Didn’t die.

We all still joke about it. She’s a very nice girl and she married the guy and we’ve known them both since we were kids.
 
Little over one hour after checkride. Took a buddy up who had a check ride with same DPE Nextel AM and I ran him through everything my DPE put me through.
 
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