How I Came to be a Private Pilot

Every pilot has a story. Here's mine:

My Dad learned to fly as a teenager in the 1940's, financing his training through earnings as a free-lance photographer.  He joined the Naval Aviation Cadets program but the war was over and he left the Navy to marry my Mom and start a family.  (Thanks, Dad!)  Aviation took a back seat. He never flew regularly or owned an airplane but he managed to take me flying from time to time with his pilot friends. I loved it!

Those childhood flights planted a seed that germinated for a long time.  During college and thereafter, I determined to learn to fly. I read the introductory books and bummed rides with my own pilot friends.  But lack of funds, lack of time and, finally, the 1986 movie Top Gun convinced me to abandon the dream.  I just wasn't in the same league, I decided.  (This was a mistake.  Piloting small, private airplanes is about as similar to flying jet fighters as driving a ski boat is to captaining the Queen Mary.)

Then in 1995 a business associate requested a weekend meeting.  I had already promised my family that we would spend the weekend at our mountain cabin.  "Can't we do it on Monday?" I whined.  "No," he replied, "A lady you need to meet is only in town this weekend.  Let's have our meeting first thing Saturday morning and then I'll fly you up to Truckee in time for lunch."  Wow! I hadn't flown in a small plane for many years so this was an offer I couldn't refuse.  When I stepped out of Fred's airplane at Truckee-Tahoe Airport, I knew my life was about to change.  The next week I was interviewing flight instructors and learning how to learn to fly.

Less than a year later, I was a private pilot. The process was one of the most satisfying educational experiences of my adult life.  During the following year I checked out in most of the single-engine planes at my flying club (West Valley Flying Club), got my "high-performance" and "complex" aircraft sign-offs and a mountain flying checkout.  Finally the day came when I bought my own airplane, a 1979 Cessna T-210 "Centurion" that I still own and love.  It is our magic carpet, whisking me and my family and friends above the highway rush from valley city to mountain town and taking us farther afield on adventures all over the West and as far as upstate New York.  Baja California and Alaska are also within reach and "on the list."

My son Dan had caught the bug years earlier when his fourth grade teacher offered him a ride in her husband's airplane. He loved it just as I had at the same age. He nagged me to learn to fly for years before the epiphany described above. Some years ago, when he was in his mid-20's, he, too, earned his Private Pilot certificate.  You can do this yourself.  Read You Can Fly by Greg Brown and my friends Laurel Lippert and her husband, photographer Tom Lippert.  The book's title is the bottom line:  You really can learn to fly.  It is challenging but very rewarding.  It takes a few months of dedicated, hard work.  At a more relaxed pace it can take a year or more.  The technical material for a Private Pilot Certificate is at about the level of a college science course but with very easy math.  The rules and regulations are extensive but mostly logical, requiring only a reasonable amount of memorization.  The required physical skills are harder than driving but easier than golf.  It costs $15,000 to $30,000, depending on where you live and how much time you can devote to it. (The more slowly you proceed, the more it costs in the end.)  I did it while working an intense management job in Silicon Valley.  I flew on weekends and early weekday mornings and only came in late or sneaked out of the office mid-day two times during the nine months it took me to finish, earning my Private Pilot certificate. Since my training, the FAA has introduced a new Sport Pilot certificate. Earning this pilot's license consumes about half the time, effort and money of a Private Pilot certificate. It limits you to smaller aircraft, fewer passengers (one), less congested airspace and the simpler kinds of flying. It's a good first step in aviation if your time or money are limited.

Your experience can be similar.  Why not give it a try?  Your pilot friends are eager to give you a ride.  The national Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association can connect you with a mentor or help a pilot friend to help you.  See AOPA_Learn_to_Fly or contact a flying club at your local, small airport. There are a lot of them everywhere that you might not even know exist! A tradition in aviation training is that many instructors donate their time for free on your first, introductory training flight. All you pay for is the airplane time.

Caveat:  Pilots like to challenge non-pilots with the seemingly technical question "Do you know what makes an airplane fly?"  The correct response is  "Money."  It's true but it need not be limiting.  Airplanes are a lot like boats - they cost as much or as little as you are willing and able to spend.  Most pilots don't own their own plane at all, choosing instead to rent from a flying club or commercial operator on an hourly basis.  (You only pay while the engine is running.)  If you prefer to own the plane you fly, a simple two-seater of a certain age costs less than $40,000. Or you could establish, say, a five-way partnership with compatible partners in a $60,000 four seat airplane and find it  almost always available when you want to fly.  Do the math.