Saturday, September 24, 2011

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

No comments:

Post a Comment