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Learning to Fly!!!

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So I'm excited and just want to share...

Today I completed my first dual instruction flight... and am 1.3 hours closer to the 40 hours (min) required to get my PPL...

the most nervous part for me was landing... but I'm definitely excited at the chance to do it all again...
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Congratulations.

If you can afford to do it in these economic times, you're livin' pretty large. I hope you brought a BIG bag of money so you can finish.

While landing may seem scary right now . . . you're going to do some stuff you've never even considered before and to me THAT was the coolest part.

Good luck to you.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Way to go, although you went and stole my thunder.:D I, too did my initial hour today. Still can't believe I landed the 172 with just a few verbal corrections. Gotta say I was so ready to get out of the plane at 3k. Time to sell one of the kids for flight time.






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Congrats and go for it if you can. Learning to fly is a great experience. The landings are the most challenging part but, like the rest of us, you'll learn to like that too. As one of the posters said, bring plenty of cash. Flying is much more expensive than skydiving, especially if you do a lot of private flying.
The meaning of life . . . is to make life have meaning.

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So I'm excited and just want to share...



Congrats!!!

I actually earned my PPL wings before I became a skydiver. I was set to take my PPL checkride about one week before 9-11 and 9-11 threw a whole wrench into my training once all airspace over the USA was temporarily closed.

Back before I was a skydiver I got my PPL and landing an airplane did NOT come natural to me. I wasn't a bad student, but I also was not a natural. I did have a rather thorough primary flight instructor. He was not easy on me, but I also feel when I did solo I knew what I was doing. In fact besides my solo mountain flights (in CO in 2002) my greatest accomplishment I have ever felt was not my first solo flight, no my greatest accomplishment was my first solo cross-country.

Anyway I got my PPL in Nov of 2001, went on to become a skydiver in the summer of 2002 and I hate to say it my flying was diminished once I started skydiving since flying was so much more expensive than skydiving. From 2002 through 2005 I did not fly as PIC. :o

In the summer of 2005 I was training full time as a competitive swooper, and I also became current again as with my PPL. It was funny, when I was a student pilot, landing an airplane did NOT come natural to me. But after a year as a full time swooper, all of a sudden landing an airplane was easy even though I was not current with landing airplanes. Everything in landing the airplane was happening so much slower than swooping. I should add though, landing an airplane does take more mental thought than landing a canopy.

Anyway congrats ... flying is a gift that few humans get to experience.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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One of my best days in my life was a 6 hour solo flight I did over the mountain of CO in the winter of 2002. This included landing at Colorado's 3rd hardest airport, Glenwood Springs which is a box canyon airport landing. It's funny I did this landing with no formal training at that airport (though I was checked out to do solo mountain flights). In fact I got in some trouble once I told the flight club I actually landed at Glenwood (turns out they did not want anyone who rented their airplanes to land at Glenwood ... my bad). But prior to flying into Glenwood Springs in the real world, I did the flight countless times on a simulator and it was amazing as I landing at Glenwood Springs in real life, what was going through my mind was "I have been here before". Simulators don't teach you how to fly, but they can be extremely valuable for terrain recognition. Of course I have never flown into Aspen (CO's 2nd hardest airport) or Telluride (CO's hardest airport). But Glenwood Springs was a rather cool box canyon to fly in and out of.

Oh and flying home that day was also one of my scarier days as an aviator. I ran into my worst turbulence late in the afternoon flying east from the continental divide home to Jeffco. It was nasty. I just slowed the airplane down and kept telling myself there is 1000 feet between this airplane and the rocks below. It was nasty. I was being thrown around in that airplane like you could not believe. In fact after that turbulence, landing at Jeffco (even though it was windy) was a piece of cake. B|

As cool as flying into Colorado's mountains are, it is not something to be complacent with. :o



Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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I did this all backwards, my flying got me into skydiving. I've been doing air ambulance in the rockies and plains regions (South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado for the last 10 years. Enjoy private flying, doing it for a living can really make it stink. From time to time I get to fly a friend and former coworkers Dakota Cub. It has a 180hp engine and radically modified slotted wings with huge fowler flaps and a modified tail. Here is a video of the approach to his 350ft driveway/runway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jfThl8_P68

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The video does NOT show you landing. But the approach looks a 1000 times more radical than Glenwood Springs. :o

This is NOT my video, but here is the Glenwood Springs landing approach (fast forward to about 7:40 into the video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLqgvRSj2Ho&feature=related



Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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