I always wanted to be a pilot.
When did you ?
A surprising number of people ask “when did you want to become a pilot” or questions to that effect, and I usually respond, I always wanted to be a pilot. As a kid, and I imagine i’m not alone in this, I enjoyed flight simulators, pilot games, airshows the wings tv series, the USS Intrepid Air and Space Museum, If it was aviation I was into it, all of it. However as time passes, some level of “realism” becomes the objective of maturity. I went to college for engineering, had developed a fascination with trucks, and then went to work designing 4WD systems for some of the most capable vehicles on the planet. It wasn’t that I had ever moved past wanting to fly, I just didn’t know how to do it. One day, while working for Volvo, I had enough disposable income, so I went and did it.
March 7th 2011 I would get myself situated in N212CF next to Michal (my primary flight instructor), and taking off out of Frederick, MD would begin a lifelong learning experience.
Primary flight training was unfortunately secondary in my life at the time. Not only was it prohibitively expensive, but I had a job that sent me travelling often. This dragged out my primary training quite a bit with a lot of start/stop action. Also I found that instructors that are ”time building” for their commercial careers are common, this i both good and bad but led me to have 7 instructors in my log book before I finally finished. If you find yourself in this situation, understand that it’s common, and be clear to express to your new flight instructor what you’ve done, and what you are comfortable with to avoid having to recycle through the beginning steps over and over again.
So the downside is obvious every instructor is a little different and will ask you to do things slightly differently, or expect your capability to different levels before proceeding to your next step. The upside is you get that same diversity of experience. My summation is in the end, your capability as an aviator is characterized by the variety of experiences you’ve had and the variety of aircraft you’ve had them in. Getting started on this variety with a variety of people yelling at you from the right seat, helps. I promise.
