Engi-nerd
Auto Racer
Mountain Biker
Pilot
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It is my good friend, Greg's fault. Before him, I was just your average motor-head. Then Greg took me up flying over Santa Cruz, and told me how easy it was to get a license. So, after returning from Costa Rica in February, 2004, I joined up with Drew Willerton at the Santa Cruz Flying Club at the Watsonville Airport. Drew is a great instructor. For anyone wanting to learn to fly, I would highly recommend meeting up with Drew Willerton to start your lessons. I met with Drew three days a week for between two and four hours each day. After a little over a month and a half of that, I then started solo'ing. And finally... three months to the day of starting on my pilot's license, I did my FAA checkride and passed. Flying is awesome. I had often heard from other pilots the sensation they describe when leaving the ground and feeling like all your worries were left below, and so long as you are airborne, you were free of all the day to day garbage. Well... as one who lives a moderately stressful life, I can now say I know exactly what they were talking about. For me, flying totally puts things in perspective. To date, I have a pretty interesting (albeit short... ~750 hours) flying career. Thus far, I have flown Citabria 7GCAA Adventure (My Plane! N8571V) Cessna A185F Skywagon II (My Other Plane! N812F) Mooney 231 Mooney 252 Cirrus SR22 Piper Cherokee Piper Archer Cessna 152 Cessna 172 Cessna 172SP Cessna 180 Cessna 182 Cessna 182 RG Turbo Bonanza A36 Diamond Katana Dehavilland Twin Otter Turbine (Right-seat) Extra 300L Wayne Handley's Raven North American T6D 1941 Waco UPF-7 Bi-Plane 1945 Boeing B-17G (Right-seat) and even have some back seat time in a North American P51D Mustang. Nearly two-thirds of my hours are tail-dragger hours. At the moment, I just finished my IFR license to legally fly through clouds, and am gearing up to start on my commercial. My fearless instructor, Drew Willerton is on point again for getting me through my commercial. I am also doing a fair amount of acrobatic flight in my Citabria (Citabria is "Airbatic" spelled backwards). Beyond the standard loops, rolls, spins, Immelmans, chandelles, Cuban-8's and split-S's, I have also joined up with my fellow Citabria buddy, Mitch, to do a little dog-fighting, arial combat. Read about our latest flight here. Stay tuned... The wife and I will be buying another plane in the coming months. With the Citabria and Skywagon now sold, we are looking for a Mooney. Sure, this is only a point A to point B plane (no acro, no dirt strips), but right now that is what life is demanding. |