Here is what I think I want to share with you through this blog – my journey to becoming a private pilot and my love for flying and all the challenges that it brings. Let me get you up to date. I took my first “discovery” flight in October of 2006 in an effort to see if this was something that I really wanted to do. I live in the greater Boston area and decided to check out Executive Flyers Aviation. They are based at Hanscom Field in Bedford Massachusetts, halfway between home and work. It is a very busy airport so I knew there would be some inherent challenges with that. But, with lots of encouragement from a good friend at work, I signed up with AOPA (Airline Owners and Pilots Association) and started getting involved. Here is what I am starting to fly – a Cessna 172SP Skyhawk:

So shortly after my discovery flight I signed up for the at-home-study course and began to schedule training with my flight instructor. I took the security training and test since Hanscom Field has some pretty stringent compliance under the administration of Massport. I passed that test, was fingerprinted and had a background check done with the Massachusetts State Police. I am now in the SYSTEM and big brother is watching.

In any event, security clearance complete, now to have an FAA medical and I am good to go. I got my medical completed in February and I was really off to the races in March. But then just a minute … snow, rain, wind, ice and pestulance. Just kidding. It is amazing how difficult it is to get time to fly with your work schedule, weather issues and instructor schedules. So the company I worked at gives each employee a sabbatical once they have 5 years of tenure. I took the month of June and focused only on flying and got the bulk of my training hours under my belt. Then on July 17th 2007 I took my first SOLO flight. Too be continued ….