I've had the bug ever since I can remember.My first flight in a small plane I was 6 and it was in a friends Skymaster. I flew with him a few times and then with my dad a couple times when he got current again (he only flew a few times after he got current - he quit his job almost right after and was busy hunting for the next few months) I didnt fly at all between then and summer 2010.
It was the summer before my 16th birthday (My birthday is in september) and my dad asked me if I still wanted to learn to fly. I responded "Of course!" and then we went hunting for a flight school. The first one called Integrity Aviation in New Braunfels I scheduled an intro flight twice and both times cancelled due to weather. When I called to re-reschedule the line was dead - drove to the airport with my mom and they had gone out of business. I called a few places but none of them really clicked with me - I called a place called blue skies in San Marcos and they reccomended I call Boerne Stage Airfield (A solid hour drive from where I am) so I did and got set up with an intro flight there.
I showed up the day of the flight with bad news - The instructor had broken his arm, and would be out for a couple weeks (little did I know this would help me make one of my best friends). I set up another intro flight with a different instructor the next day . I got there and met my new CFI (and future great friend) Tim (mooneydude). We flew twice a week starting July 13th to try and solo me on my birthday (september 14th). Weather was a killer of flights - We cancelled 5 or 6 because of low ceilings or just bad weather. I showed up at the airport on my birthday not 100% if I was going to be able to solo or not. Glider ops were going on and the wind was blowing, but Tim and I went up anyway and shot a few landings in the pattern. On the last one the glider folks put the plane away and the wind subsided - Tim got out and told me good luck.
I went up and did 2 of the best landings I ever did and decided to call it quits there as the wind picked back up a tad. It was definitely my best birthday ever.
Tim and I kept flying twice a week and during that time I realized that I really wanted to be a CFI. I got all my XCs knocked out in January of 2011 and did a few fun flights with Tim. In mid February I was ready for my checkride and met all the requirements except to be 17, so I toned down the flying a little bit and went in maybe once every 2 weeks. In mid march Tim called me and told me he was going to be going to jet school at American Eagle at the end of march and told me that he could still be my CFI as long as I could work with his schedule.
Towards the end of March my parents found a plane they really liked (Nice 172 with the O360 and low TTAF)and decided to get a pre-buy done on it. It passed pre-buy but was in Utah so the question arose as to how to get it back to Texas. A friend of the owner was actually a captain for skywest and CFI and offered to fly it back to Texas with me. I flew to Salt Lake City via SWA on the 15th. On the 16th I got to see the plane and fly it for the first time (plus I got to fly in a glider) and on the 17th we took off for Texas.
Our route was 42U-KTEX-KROW-KBAZ. Originally we werent going to stop in Telluride (I forget where it was originally going to be) but he asked if I wanted to and I said sure. So we headed to Telluride in a Cessna Skyhawk.
That was pretty cool. They said we were the first 172 they had seen in awhile.
The rest of the trip was fairly unextraordinary. We got back to Texas at about 8PM (we hadnt eaten anything besides candy bars and coke) and we went to a BBQ joint to get something to eat, then dropped him off at his hotel. It hadn't totally sunk in yet that I had a plane that I could fly whenever and wouldnt get bumped off the schedule. I had flown the previous week with a CFI so I could get checked off from 5C1-BAZ for repeat solos. Since I wasnt a private pilot I really couldnt go anywhere besides to 5C1 (Boerne).
One of the times I was getting my 90 day solo privelages renewed the CFI who I was flying with asked if I wanted to get checked off to go somewhere different and I said "Hell yeah!" So I got checked off to go to T82 (Fredericksburg) and KHYI (San Marcos). The kicker was T82 was 5 miles too far from KBAZ to go in one straight shot (As a student pilot my plane would catch on fire and the wings would fall off were I to fly the extra 5 miles) so I had to fly from BAZ-5C1-T82 and back the same way. Sometimes I could get one of the rated pilots to go with me (Fredericksburg has a great on-field restaurant).
I am a member of another forum called Pilots of America and met one of the admins on the site at T82 for lunch one day (SCCutler) and got to fly in his bonanza. We talked for awhile and I went back to boerne but not before making a new friend. PoA (Pilots of America) has a fly-in every labor day weekend at 6Y9 (on da UP of Michigan) and mentioned that I would love to go but couldn't because I wasn't rated. Another one of the admins (Jesse) said that he would go with me but convincing my parents to let a stranger fly 1100 miles with me wasn't as easy of a task as I thought. I realized I had some explaining to do and had an idea! Spike (SCCutler) had a son my age and had met Jesse numerous times. I called Spike and asked if he would vouch for Jesses character and he said he would be happy to. All it took was 5 minutes on the phone and Spike the smooth talking Texas lawyer had convinced my mom to let Jesse fly with me.
I was in Texas and Jesse was in Nebraska so the question of how he would get from there to here became an obstacle. He ended up riding his motorcycle all the way down from Nebraska and arrived here at about 3AM. I stayed up so I could meet him and both my parents were asleep. When he arrived he was exhausted so we said a couple words, I pointed him to the guest room, and that was our interaction for the evening. I woke up at about 10 and heard the shower going, so figured he was up too. He met my mom and we drove to the airport - still essentially strangers. We took off and about 8 hours (and lots of laughs) later we arrived in Lincoln. We flew 2500 miles and he rode his motorcycle 1600 for his trip.
I took my checkride on my 17th birthday and passed, and went back up to Nebraska with Jesse for an instrument rated almsot 1 month to the day after I got my private. I passed 1 month to the day after I started after various mechanical issues.
That is my brief aviation career so far - but to be continued! (Tomorrow I am flying a Pilots N Paws flight almost 1,000 miles)
