My first passenger

Of course I had to pay him to get into the airplane, but when he got out an
hour and a half later, he shook my hand, signed the back of my Student
Permit, took some trophy pictures for me, and officially stated that the
Government was satisfied that I can pilot an airplane.


I haven't been around to harass you guys very much since my ISP pulled the
plug on USENET service.

But anyway, some of you may recall that I posted a "first solo" in December
2004. My initial flight was in August 2004, and exactly 19,141.12 Canadian
dollars later, (and approximately 100 total hours), I have a PPL.

Approximately 10 hours before finishing... and watching those numbers
skyrocket out of sight... I decided to switch instructors and schools. Had
I not, I wonder if I would be able to type this today.

Based on my experience:
Never choose a big multi-instructor school because it is close. Wrong
reason. It is remarkable how much time is eaten up ferrying back and forth
to the practice area. Driving five times the distance saved at least 20
minutes per flight equals about 70 dollars dual all taxes in. I don't think
it cost me 10 bucks in gas to go the extra distance. Just the 50 or 60
bucks saved per hour of real instruction would have cut five or six grand
right there.

Stay away from schools with computerized instructor booking. Sounds good.
I can schedule my instructor for a month in advance. So can the next guy.
If my dates run into bad weather I have no flexibility to book another day
because he is already booked. It can work in your favour, but it can also
backfire severely, especially in Winter. I ran past the school's
solo-currency requirements a number of times resulting in more instructor
time than should have been necessary.

The toughest thing, however, is to spot the passenger who is posing as an
instructor. I actually thought that my instructor was "pretty good"....
until I took my first ride with the new one. And I suppose he was, in a
way. I did learn all the necessary manoeuvres, after a fashion. But it
only took 10 minutes in the same cockpit with the new one to understand that
I had 90 hours of bad habits to undo.

Anyway... another life experience to cross off the list of things to do
before I die, and now I get to start the next, continuing, phase of it all.
Let's see, I wonder if I have any money left for the night rating...... :-)

Thanks to these groups for some of the initial inspiration to get started.