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Flight training help

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etterre

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
313
Location
St. Louis, MO, USA
Help! I'm currently finding myself as the lead character in that all-too-typical story of the form: "Yep, I started training 20/30/40 years ago but then work/family/life/kids/money got in the way. But I'm gonna finish it now that I'm retired."

I'm only 33 and 30+ years of waiting seems a little bit much, so I'm looking for advice about what to do.

More specifics about my story:
I was taking lessons for Sport Pilot at H49 with Andy Mueller, but that isn't currently possible. The bulk of that story can be found here: www.flystl.com My last flight was back in October 2006 and I've got 17 hours in the Luscombe so if everything goes my way (Andy re-forms the business this fall and gets another Luscombe), I could finish up a sport pilot certificate with another 15 hours. But that hangs my hopes on a lot of maybes and I certainly wouldn't finish before winter sets in. Unfortunately, the wife is also getting a little annoyed about:
1. the $$$ spent
2. the time spent
3. and how little I have to show for it

Things I've thought about:
I could finish my Sport Pilot ticket at St. Charles flying service. The hardest bit is that I live in South St. Louis City - so travel one way is an hour drive in good traffic, which means lessons only on weekends. Lessons on weekends = learn slow and catch flak for delays on household projects. The other hard bit is that renting their Evektor is twice as expensive as Andy's Luscombe.

I could also take Private Pilot lessons somewhere else. The best option I've found is a C-172 at CPS (which might be even more convenient than H49)... which rents for $97/hr wet... Once again, about twice as expensive, but at least I have a better chance of actually taking lessons. But lessons for what purpose? Sport Pilot level privileges is all I really want at the moment and a PPL is probably another 30-40 hours from where I am currently. 30-40 hours of instruction is quite a bit more cash than I have in the budget and the calendar time to get those hours is going to wear on the wife's patience.

I could take the lessons at CPS until I "feel that I know enough" for the SP practical, do a couple of weekend lessons at St. Charles for solo signoff, and finish up with the practical test in their Evektor. But again, what purpose does that serve? St. Charles has the only rental LSA in the area, so I'd have a license but I'd have very few chances to actually use it.

I've also poked around for a partnership or a flight club, but the three that I've found with openings all have a "no students" policy - either in the form of a PPL requirement or a minimum of 100 flight hours. I've toyed with the idea of forming a partnership around an LSA and basing it at H49, but I would imagine that insurance would be nearly impossible (which is the reason for the "no students" policies), finding partners would be difficult, and then there's the small matter of acquiring an LSA before winter sets in...

Does anyone have some better ideas?
 
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