Where to Begin

After my Angel Flight experience in August of 2009, I began to search out what, where, how and who. My community is not large but has a decent airport. I started with an internet search and located one flight school. I went to the airport office and looked at the bulletin board for advertisements. I located two individuals who were in the flight training business. I then spoke with staff at the airport office for their thoughts on how to begin this adventure. Nobody had anything negative to say about the service providers in this area. I was told that I could fly with somebody established, in their plane, or I could buy my own plane and hire a flight instructor. Buying a plane with no experience was not an option although I did look just for the heck of it.

Through some friends in town I met with couple of people who are pilots and were very supportive and helpful in sharing their experiences and ideas on how to proceed. Essentially I was on the right track with research but was encouraged to begin reading anything I could to become familiar with flying in general aviation. The internet by far provided huge amounts of information and I began to sort through the plethora of information. There are many resources to research. One organization that I can highly recommend is the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). This organization is the major advocacy organization for all things general aviation related. Their website has a tremendous volume of information for anybody at any stage whether a beginner like me or someone with thousands of hours logged. This website is a good place to begin. AOPA offers a six month free membership to new potential members that comes with their monthly Flight Training magazine.

I decided to place calls to the two CFI's (Certified Flight Instructors) that I noted on the bulletin board. This seemed to me to be a situation that would provide a small and perhaps more intimate flight training experience as opposed to a larger flight school. This I thought would also be good way to talk to someone about flight training and perhaps take an introductory flight. I called both individuals. I never heard from one and received a prompt call from the other. I was able to have several good conversations and found that an introductory flight was an option. When you research flight training you will find many references to finding the right person to be your CFI. Why is this important? You will end up spending much time together in close quarters, did you ever own a VW Bug?. As a student you will be under instruction and observation constantly as you learn and focus on accomplishing the lesson objectives while in the air. For obvious reasons you will want to have a CFI who not only is experienced but hopefully enjoys the teaching process and being in the air as much as the new student. As you research you will likely come across the name Rod Machado. Rod writes a column for the AOPA Flight Training magazine and he also has a website called Rod Machado's Aviation Blog. Rod recently wrote a blog called "Finding a Good Flight Instructor" that is worth reading. I am fortunate to have found a good CFI for me rather quickly. We agreed on a date and time to to take an intro flight.