I don’t remember exactly when my love for aviation started, but it reached critical mass today.
Until now, I had sated my love of all things flying with simulators. I had been simming on and off for years, always dreaming of taking lessons. I had gotten to the point of emailing a few flight instructors for information, but had never seriously followed up. I always found a reason to postpone starting the process — finances, time, family…there was always some reason.
That all changed today.
My wonderful wife bought me an intro flight for my 40th birthday, and I plunged head-on into the world of flight training.
This is my story.
I was paired with my flight instructor as if it was destiny. My wife bought the intro flight, all I had to do was schedule it… I decided to wait until I was sure I could dedicate myself to the training — I wound up with a week off of work and selected November 9th, one day after my birthday, as the day I would take my intro flight. As fate would have it, November 9th was a rainy, crappy day — even with no weather or flight knowledge, I knew I wouldn’t be going up that day. As fate would also have it, my wife had secretly scheduled the flight for today, November 12th! It really worked out well since Wednesdays are my CFI’s regular day off, so if the weather had been better that day I would’ve been paired with a different instructor.
I showed up this morning to Danbury Airport (DXR) and met my instructor. He’s an old-school stick & rudder pilot with 12,000 hours — exactly the kind of guy I wanted to teach me how to fly right. I knew within 5 minutes that this was the type of instructor I wanted — one who might take a while to sign me off to solo, but once he did, I would know I was truly ready. I didn’t want to check some boxes off a checklist, I wanted to learn how to be a really great pilot.
We headed out to the plane and he told me the purpose of the flight was to see if I was really into this and wanted to learn how to fly. I already knew the answer, but I appreciated that he needed to know as well. I climbed into the left seat of N474EP, a Cessna 172R, and my journey began.
The flight is really a bit of a blur — I remember taxiing out to the runway, looking a bit like a drunken sailor weaving about the taxiway centerline as I learned to use the rudder pedals to steer. My CFI performed the takeoff and then had me do some straight and level flight and some basic turns. As soon as it started it seemed like it was over and my CFI took the controls and landed us back at DXR. I knew one thing — I was hooked and was ready to commit to the journey to earn my PPL.
As soon as we landed I booked my next lesson and bought the flight school’s student package (a flight bag, logbook, a bunch of textbooks, and an E6B and plotter). I left feeling like I was on the cusp of something great in my life, and I can’t wait for the date of my next lesson to arrive.
Flight time today: 0.9 hours
Total flight time to date: 0.9 hours
