Learning to fly is expensive

Another tough week on the climb up my "Everest". Financially, I am stuck at the moment and need to stabilize our situation before I can make the final push. The economy is really tough right now and the value of our home continues to fall and therefore my ability to borrow any money at a decent interest rate isn't possible at the moment. So I spoke to my instructor and I will fly 1x a month to keep my skills up and spend a session with him each weekend getting ready for the oral test (a 3 hour question and answer session before you take your checkride). Things should get easier in the future, but I am not comfortable with bad debt, so for the moment I am more comfortable with slowing the pace a bit so I can catch up. I plan to use the little bit of extra time not flying memorizing the 3 books of materials for the oral. By this point I am quite used to setbacks and that is just part of this climb...it took me several years and several tries before I had the money and psychological confidence to solo, so this is probably no different...just keep pushing...keep my eyes on the summit. As the cliche goes...the only one that can completely stop me is me.

When things got hard this week and I was ready to "throw in the towel" completely...I kept thinking of my hostdaughter from Germany last year...we both love flying and she is an avid skydiver. She would often go to the airport with me during a lesson and loved being around the airport and airplanes as much as I did. I couldn't bear the thought of telling her that I had to quit again, so I had to find a way to continue. I hope this slowdown is only temporary. So without knowing it exactly, Sarah joined the team: "Team Everest" as I call my support people. With a little luck and pushing things as hard as I reasonably can, I will have my license before she returns to America. I think in large part I started taking lessons again last year because of her enthusiasm for all things of the sky.

Sometimes a dream will help things keep moving too. A few weeks ago I had the idea that I will have medals made for all of my support team. I will present the medals with a description of their contribution to my climb after I get my license. I also plan to have a big party after I succeed for my supporters and friends. I can remember a couple similar parties...one was when I got my teaching job...that was a huge ordeal and about as tough and frustrating as my current Everest. The second party that comes to mind was when Teddy turned 6 months old. Nobody really thought he would survive at several points during his first 4 months and we had a big party for all of our supporters at a park after the worst was behind us...even a lot of his doctors came to the party which indicates how crazy and serious our situation was and how miraculous the recovery was. So... on to the next party.

Both photos courtesy of Sarah Zapf

Helping others climb

I am continually dumbfounded and surprised about how tough this climb up "my Everest" is. So many things to remember, too many things to remember and know to keep myself and possible future passengers safe. But, enough vent, my instructor is on vacation and my assignment was to do some flying, practice landings etc at least once in his absence. All week it has just been windier than hell...finally it calmed down a little Thursday evening...but it was still windy, so I decided I would go out to KFES, sit in Hotel Alpha and go thru a whole flight and several landings using visualisation only (well, sort of only because I was actually in the cockpit). But, after going thru all of the motions awhile, I noticed that the winds died down a little and a few other pilots were firing up taking off, so it had been a while and I had never completely taken the plane by myself without anyone there...so this was a big step...nobody to see me off...just me and my judgment. As soon as I got in the air, I was spooked a bit, I was climbing too fast it seemed, it was choppy...but I finally got myself together and relaxed, even in the chop and winds and was making a smooth approach headed right for the numbers...about 50 feet AGL a big gust of wind nailed me cross and blew me about 100 feet off course, I quickly dipped the wing into the wind, got back on track and made an extremely smooth crosswind landing. I felt pretty good about it, but didn't really want to risk it again...plus I had to put the airplane into its T-Hanger without help before it got dark (something I had never tried before), so I called it a day. It was a real pain trying to get the plane back in the hangar, luckily one of the airport bums was there and came to the rescue. He told me that I made a great landing, which boosted my confidence. Later, I spent some time talking to him and he told me that I shouldn't have made such a correction close to the ground, although in my case, he said, I had plenty of altitude, but that it was a bad habit, because eventually you might do it too low and knock a wing into the ground. Humbled, I considered the critique and asked him more questions about it and what I should have done in that situation. He recommended a forward slip (which I am not sure I know exactly what is exactly...) or do a go around. So yeah, more to think about...seems I make some kind of mistake each time I'm up, but I do give them lots of careful thought and so far I've never made the same mistake twice. Now, I am not sure what is next, really lost on the mountain so to speak right now...have 3 books of stuff to memorize for the check ride, but I haven't had the time, energy or motivation to hit them very hard. Also, the economy is really killing us and we are running out of money for this endeavour...and it is scary because I don't know how much more I have to go...is it 5 hours? 10 hours? 20 hours? God I don't know....but I do know enough about my life, especially after 42 years, to know that things like this won't come easy for me. But, as many people have told me recently, this is hard for a lot of people, I'm just one of the few that will publicly put my insecurities and mistakes out there...but I do it because I think it will be helpful for others struggling with flying or whatever their "Everest" might be.