Okay so over the weekend we had some friends literaly fly in for the day Saturday. Brian is a pilot and has his own little 4 seater plane. The idea of planning out mini vacations and jumping in your own plane to get there is just so cool… no traffic jams, no road construction, and shaves 3/4 of the travel time off.
I’ve been half teasing Angel about buying a plane for years now, never really thought it could be a simple reality. She’s been griping “no planes” for years now, she’s not fond of the motorcycle, but has learned to trust me a bit more on it. We’ll see what some sweet talking and stuff can do. Now I’ve got my head wrapped around it and decided THAT is exactly what I want to do for my mid life crisis… 
I spent most of Saturday night just buzzing, reading up on all the info I could find on the costs, FAA rules and requirements, even found an instructor pretty local to us. Subscribed to a bunch of General Aviation magazines and Ezines as well to start reading up on more and more. Even grabbed a “$49 for your first flight lesson” certificate from BeAPilot. Looking at around $4-5K to get all flight and ground training completed. Really not too bad a deal in my books, given I’m a very quick study for anything I’m interested in I might be able to cut down the time and thus reduce my costs, which means more savings towards buying a plane By my figuring I spend that on smokes in a year!
So that’s my goal for my 40th bday next spring… to start training and have my General Aviation Permit by summer’s end. Even got the perfect ‘butter her up plan’ for Angel in mind, her birthday is a month before mine…so big plans in the mix to do it up right and make it a lasting one… one where she’ll need a passport for! It’s going to run me about the same cost as flight lessons, so I’m looking at somehow pulling together about $10K between now and next April. Time to start saving all of my pennies. I think with a little effort I can swing most of it in time, I want to have at least hers saved up and at least 1/2 of mine put away in time.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:44 am
My pops bought a Cessna 4 Seater. It changed his life completely. If you got the money, go for it!
June 20th, 2005 at 11:53 am
good luck with your plan! hehe
June 20th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Chet: Yup that’s what has my eye right now, a Cessna 172, they come highly recommended for stability and somewhat forgiving to newer pilots.
Lu: Thanks, I sure am hoping to pull all this off.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
Yah - Its an Excellent choice for a plane. If you haven’t flown yet, or havent had a plane yet - maybe start out with an Ultralight? But yah its all he talks about - his bloody plane and flying and now he goes to all these flying events. Props to him and best luck to you…
June 21st, 2005 at 1:21 pm
You should look into building your own airplane. Check out eaa.org.
Most people don;t realize that you can build your own plane. As long as you put in 51% of the effort that goes into building one, you can declare it as an “experimental” airplane and thus don’t have to deal with all the strict rules like a production plane. There are still ruesl you have to follow though and they are certainly safer than Ultralights.
Goolge for RV6 and RV8, or the various canard designs from Burt Rutan (yes, the guy from scaled.com)!
There is also a new pilot category, called Sport Pilot, I believe. Basically fair weather flying only and not as expensive as a regular pilot’s license, plus you only need a drivers license instead of an anual medical.
Anyways, I say go for it! I for one will be jealous. May be in another 10-12 years I will follow your example.
June 21st, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Cool info… I considered the ultralights even the gyrocopters, then thought better of it.
Thanks for the info and fueling the fire! Why wait another 10 years? I figured I was being conservative holding off till next spring to gather the funding…
Wonder if there is an organization out there giving away grants to fuel mid-life crisises??