Took my intro/discovery flight this afternoon
Hi r/flying, I just wanted to make a post to thank this community for all the stories and discussion that finally inspired got me to stop waiting and call my local flight school and and set up an intro flight.
The chief flight instructor set me up with another instructor for today at 6, so I headed down after work and met up with him. We went out to the 152 tied up outside and he talked me through a preflight and some communication basics we got going.
He let me taxi the couple hundred feet to the runway and then he back taxied and took off.
He climbed up to 2400 ft, leveled it out and then gave me the controls. He worked with me on wings level flight, scanning for traffic (we did find another plane inbound who we were talking to on the radio), following visual landmarks, how the plane responds to different angles of attack and throttle inputs, and then he let me do some turns to get back on a course for the field.
He let me descend down to pattern altitude as we worked into the downwind and then he took the controls until landing.
Once we landed we taxied back, did the post flight, and then while we tied her up we chatted for a bit about the next steps for me to get set up for real lessons.
It was a really cool experience, and once I got over the "wow, we're off the ground and the plane isn't falling out from under me" feeling it was a blast. I tried not to have the yoke in a death grip, but it was a lot of new things to try and focus on at once.
I'm told him I'd take a few weeks to get my schedule and budget together to figure out exactly when and how much I can fly per month and call them back to work on the next steps. He said people normally try to get out there three times a week but I'm not sure I could make three every week. I know the more I fly the less I have to redo at each lesson, so hopefully we can find a balance.
I just want to thank everyone for all the posts, discussion, random tips on here that finally encouraged me to get started and looking forward to working at a challenging and rewarding adventure!
Posted Jul 15, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC
Congrats on taking the first step of a very very very expensive hobby. May the odds be ever in your favor. Enjoy!
Ya know what I realized? Every hobby is expensive when you get into it. Let's pick SCUBA. Shit, I live in PA so its $1500 just to get to a decent place to dive for a week where I get 5-10 dives in for $200-$500. Equipment for SCUBA is equally as expensive as aviation.
Aviation may be expensive but nearly every hobby is if you actually are "into" the hobby. My buddy has a jetski that burns fuel at a rate of $80/hr.
I WISH flying only costed 80 a hour.
My club's C152 is $82/hr.
Yeah I know but flight schools are more and I'm too big for a 152.
Mine is $65 wet
My uncle was an avid hang glider pilot. He did the math and a typical trip was costing more than the local rental rate for a fixed wing plane.
With many hobbies it is never a good idea to calculate the hourly rate.
Hobbies are meant to use your "extra" or "fun" money anyway so take care of all essentials first then who cares how you spend your money.
Exactly.
If you add in all the enjoyment I get out of reading about my hobbies online it would really knock down the hourly rate.
Where are you going? Tried diving in the Great Lakes?