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I thought about learning to fly since I was a teenager, but it took a move to California to get me to do something about it. In May 2001, I took my first left-seat flight in a Cessna 152 at the Sundance Flying Club at Palo Alto Airport, midway between San Francisco International (SFO) and San Jose International (SJC). In March 2002 I passed my Private Pilot checkride - the story is here. In May 2002, coincidentally a year to the day after my first lesson, I started on my Instrument Rating, which I obtained in November 2002 after almost exactly six months. During that time I also checked out in four different aircraft (Cessna Cutlass RG, Cessna 182T, Cirrus SR20, and lastly my very own Cessna T182RG), so I clocked up quite a few hours - the day of my Instrument checkride I had 365 hours.

wpeD.jpg (9611 bytes) In October 2002, I bought my own plane - N5296S, a 1980 Cessna T182RG. I had all sorts of dreams about the plane I'd buy, but problems with financing brought me down to earth. In fact this is the perfect plane for me - fast enough (160 KTAS or so), and can carry four normal people plus baggage, with enough fuel for a good three hours with generous reserves. For a 22-year old aircraft, she's in excellent condition. I'll probably repaint her quite soon, since the colours are so 1970s, and re-do the interior with some more comfortable seats. The avionics are pretty decent, including a Garmin 430. Originally I planned to spend quite a lot on new avionics, but as I get used to what I have, I'm not so sure.
By Spring 2003, I was getting a bit bored by the absence of flight training from my life, so I started a couple of things. First, I started to do some tailwheel flying in a Citabria. This is a real pig of a plane to fly, it astounds me that some people use it for their primary training. Much more fun, I started to do aerobatics at Attitude Aviation in Livermore, in their Grob aerobatic trainers. It started as unusual attitude recovery, but somehow turned into aerobatics along the way. So far I've done loops, rolls, spins and simple combinations such as the Immelman and the Cuban Eight.
Soon after getting my licence, I  bought a share in a brand new Cessna 182, N430P, through a fractional ownership scheme run by OurPlane. She's seen here being refueled 211 feet below sea level at Furnace Creek, CA (L77). She was a great plane to fly and gave me a definite taste for big engines and good load-haulers. I think OurPlane is a good scheme, but after some maintenance problems they moved 430P to San Carlos, which wasn't very practical for me, and I also found it expensive given the amount I have been flying - hence my decision to buy my own plane.

Often at weekends, if there's nothing else going on, we try to fly somewhere for the famous "$100 hamburger" – here are a few places we've been to.

Last revised: 2nd June 2002.