An old Pilot sat down in Starbucks and ordered a cup of coffee.
As he sat sipping his coffee, a young woman sat down next to him.
She turned to the pilot and asked, ‘Are you a real pilot?’
He replied, ‘Well, I’ve spent my whole life flying biplanes, Cubs, Aeronca’s, Neiuports, flew in WWII in a B-29, and later in the Korean conflict, taught 50 people to fly and gave rides to hundreds, so I guess I am a pilot – what about you?’
She said, ‘I’m a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about naked women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about naked women. When I shower, I think about naked women When I watch TV, I think about naked women. It seems everything makes me think of naked women.’
The two sat sipping in silence.
A little while later, a young man sat down on the other side of the old pilot and asked, ‘Are you a real pilot?’
He replied, ‘I always thought I was, but I just found out I’m a lesbian.’
I've just got my ducks in a row and seen a missed message on the 'Your Say' page from an Aron Dahl. I'm putting the reply here as it may be of use to others as well as the reply wouldn't let me reply with so many words. 4096 characters max...didn't realise I had written so much. Anyhew, I digress...
Arn Dahl - "Hey! I have been watching your videos on Youtube and they are very good. I am looking to start flight training in a few months. I am saving up money to get my private and then save up for the commercial. What rating are you planning on going to? Also any tips for a beginner looking to start flight school would be greatly appreciated!"
Firstly Aron my apologies for the delay in replying. Many thanks for the kind words on the YouTube videos. I hope they are of use to you during your training.
One of the biggest tips I can give you is get to know your school before you sign on the dotted line for training. Speak to the staff, ask if they will give you a tour of the facilities and more importantly the aircraft. The way they look on the outside can often be a true reflection of how they do business. Ie if they look scruffy from the outside, chances are they are scruffy at how the operate. This is not always the case but will give you a good taste of what to expect. See if they would allow you to do som shadowing of a working day and get a sneak preview of how things are run.
If there is a local flight club, pop down and have a chat with people and see if there are any views on the training school you plan to choose, however, the nature of the industry and the competition may lead to biased opinions or lies to bad name the school. With this in mind take other peles views as being very subjective and from that take an overall view from the collected data. Don't rush into picking. A school that is 20 minutes drive away as opposed to one that is 1 hr away may not be the right choice so do your homework well.
The next thing is plan your finances as you don't want to start as keen as mustard and then run out of funds just as you are getting good at it. I can costs lots more money together back into it after some time off. Hold back starting till you know you can make a clear sweep at it.
Take some spending risks when it comes to training material and additional equipment like personal head sets and GoPro camera equipment. As much as smoke of it seams like a luxury it can make the difference in understanding what is going on and prevent complicates during your training. For example, I skimmed money from my funds in the region of three flights worth to buy a set of Lightspeed headsets (http://headsets.lightspeedaviation.com/productline/zulu-2). Not to be swanky or show off but to stop myself getting ear infections which naturally stopped me from flying till it cleared. This in turn cost more money as I had to get my hand back into flying having been off sick. The second example is the GoPro camera. In the region of $280/£280 depending on source, but the ability to review your flight straight after flying and seeing what your instructor was saying was right is no end valuable. Even now as a qualified pilot, I still regularly rematch my flights from start to Finnish and pick holes in my own flying and Learn from it. You see things on video your not aware of while flying. The same goes for keeping a log of what you do each lesson. Hence why I've done this blog. Review is a great learning tool. With the learning material, apps for mobiles and iPads etc are incredibly useful. There are also an incredibly huge source of boox that can help. Some don't present the information properly for a new pilot, instead being written almost by pilots for pilots which doesn't help. There are many good ones though. And obviously blogs are a great source if help. Check out the links page for some good ones I use even today.
The next big one is do your theory lessons and exams early leaving you more time to fly and properly 'learn' to fly without worrying about if your coms are ok or your flying within the law. I left some of mine too late and it cost me many extra flying hours just to keep my hand in. Get them over and done with and enjoy the rest of the flights up to your exam.
The last one I'll say here is 'ask questions'. Don't ever be afraid or embarrassed about asking the same question more than once as well. If you don't ask you get. There are countless people out there on blogs and forums that can get the answers you need. And as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, someone will have asked the same question as you before. It's all out there.
I wish you the best of luck with starting your flight training and if there is anything I can do to help don't hesitate to ask.
