Got outmaneuvered for the computer this weekend by a bossy teenage daughter! But wow, what a lot of great posts to read! And thank you too for the encouragement! That is a big shot in the arm. And I thought Andrew and some of the EC Outcasts' idea of using the flight for a get together was a lovely one! (Andrew, I am torn between the desire to take left seat and learn as you suggested, and getting to take right and look out the window, for America is surely a grand and beautiful country to fly over, no matter which part you are in!!! But if it works out and however it works out, I insist on being allowed to pay for fuel!)
I can't stop thinking about that Chief. One of the things my husband and I were thinking of doing (because one of us, i.e. me is constantly homesick), was possibly taking out a loan against the house which is now paid off, and maybe getting a tiny wee cottage in the US somewhere, a "bolt hole" as my family teasingly calls it. What if one were to make flying lessons and the Chief the bolt hole instead? That might be less expensive tooo, and it would get me home more often. I'd have to find a place near where I have family and/or friends and could come and stay upon occasion, where I could keep it, and would need to be befriended by someone who could keep it turning over and flying at least once a week for me when I wasn't there to keep the poor old thing from pining away and rotting away in the hangar ...
Crikey...I AM off my bloody rocker! That is the sort of thing you write in fairytales, not suggest for real life! Yet truth can be stranger than fiction.... I know a chap here in Norway who said frankly and outright when asked why on earth he chose to own a horse in North Dakota rather than the country of his residence, replied "owning my horse in North Dakota is equivalent to me of owning a summer cabin, only it is in the place I always go in the summer and where I want to be." He had arranged with the ranch owners to allow them to use the horse when he wasn't there, and I guess they had matters set up in a way that worked well for both of them.
I wonder if something similar could be done with a homesick old biddy and an airplane (this is assuming I can pass a medical and learn to fly. I am extremely dense in the mathematics department!)
OK, I realise you probably all think I need to be committed at this point, so I shall shut up. But golly, I thought that Chief was a neat little plane. She or something very like her.....And you could go pasture hopping in something like that, couldn't you, assuming she was fit and sound, and one had accumulated sufficient hours and experience under one's belt?
Well, I already have the Lasher book and Bob Livingston's book about Flying the Aeronca. Been studying those. And just like a horse, any plane one got serious about would have to be thoroughly vetted too. An Ercoupe lady in CA once told me that one should budget at least one third, or possibly even half of the purchase price towards repairs that Murphy's Law would undoubtedly ensure needed to be done shortly after taking ownership. Is that true? And what are the pitfalls of maintenance of Chiefs and Champs? As opposed to a Cessna 150?
But as Jeff's video also proves, you can go an awful lot of fun places in a stock 150 too........
Hmmmmmm...........the hard part when you are standing on the precipice of opportunity is actually plucking up the courage and faith to go ahead and make the jump......one wants to jump intelligently and preparedly, not recklessly without planning and forethought...
I think I see the men in white coats.....or an award winning story in the making? (!!!!)
(A slightly deranged) Jennifer in Norway
