Putting Theory into Practice

About 2/3 of the way through ground school, it became obvious that it was time to get my butt into a plane and get some practical experience. I've always been booksmart. Learning how stuff works has never been a problem for me. But one can read all the books in the world on how to play golf and never actually be able to hit the ball off the tee. The theoretical needed to become practical.

One of the early lessons in the ground school training covered how to choose a flight school. Let me back up here about 5 years when my wife bought me a gift certificate for an introductory flight lesson as a birthday present from one of the local schools, Aspen Flying Club. My birthday’s in March and I wanted to wait until Summer, so I set the certificate “someplace safe.” Sound familiar? Yep. Five years later, I find the darned thing again. I look up the school and compare it to what the course said to look for—ample fleet of aircraft, good maintenance, flexible scheduling, realistic portrayal of what training will actually cost, availability of simulators, ride-alongs, etc. The school pretty much hit all of the major check boxes. That and a chance encounter with a neighbor (also a drone pilot) who flew with Aspen sealed the deal for me. I called, made an appointment, and scheduled my first lesson. They even honored my 5-year-old gift certificate!

Between then and my first lesson, my doorbell chimed with a seemingly never-ending parade of parcels from Amazon to fill out my flight gear. I passed on the aviator sunglasses, though somewhere in my basement I have my grandfather’s aviators he wore when he flew. Sadly he died just after I was born so I never had the chance to fly with him. But like a giddy schoolboy, I had everything I needed and probably then some. (And probably not a lot of practical stuff that I should have, but I’ll worry about that later, though I should probably toss my old Leatherman into the bag. Tools are good things to have.)