Do it!!! I wish I could be there, but not in the cards this year.
It's staggering what an engine can do......or the lack of one.
Jim
I had no idea I'd be this blue over not flying. When I missed a year by not renting for awhile, it wasn't like this...
When my plane was down for the 150HP conversion, I, too, was surprised how not being able to fly affected me. According to my wife, I was pretty grumpy. I tried my best to stay upbeat and positive the whole time.
I had no idea I'd be this blue over not flying. When I missed a year by not renting for awhile, it wasn't like this...
Having an airplane that you OWN, sitting there unusable is far more painful than not going and renting for a while
When I bought my first plane from the flight school, it was March 13, 2013. It was in the shop for repairs/maintenance forever - I took my very first flight, in a plane I bought in March, on Aug 11. THAT was a brutal 5 months.
I feel your pain in that respect. But I wouldn't want to think of staring down the barrel of a +$20K engine job. But given my nature, I would do the foolish (?) thing and simply put the money on the line of credit and get 'er done!
But given my nature, I would do the foolish (?) thing and simply put the money on the line of credit and get 'er done!
I certainly adopted that approach when learning to fly. (Well - I didn't make any pension payments that year). It came to the top of my bucket list in 2010 when 4 friends/colleagues all announced diagnoses with cancer. I booked 3 lessons a week to get it done. Weather that winter allowed for just one a week on average and Feb was killer when the weather closed in and there was simply no flying - no matter how I worked my schedule to get a lesson - they were all cancelled. Talk about frustrated.
The MOST worthwhile flight clocked me at 1,000 hours exactly. The friend least expected to survive had beaten the odds and predictions for 4 years. She called to say she would like to go flying and we knew it was her way of saying goodbye. She carefully juggled her painkillers to create a lucid and pain free couple of hours. We spent a wonderful late afternoon in the air.
No need to apologize. Every time I hear that story or see that picture , I get a lump in my throat. The picture of her looking out at the water is particularly touching.
We held a little remembrance at her favorite beach last summer. Down on Jamestown on the narrow isthmus at Dutch Harbor. The lowest I dare go was the 500ft rule and it was blowing like crazy aloft and about 10 knots across the beach at right angles on the surface.
I bought every rose I could find in town that afternoon, flew across the beach and streamed them out the door. Amazingly - they nearly all made it onto the beach.
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