Intro - Lindsay

[lindenfoxcub]

Hi, I don't know if anyone is actually still active in this community, but I thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Lindsay, and I just passed my written and flight tests for my private pilot's license last week

Comments

[dungtroy]

It... belongs to museums! :D

[scarybaldguy]

Congratulations. And I totally feel you on the "too poor to do this" thing.

[lindenfoxcub]

Thanks :) That was the other main reason I didn't want to try - didn't want to start and never have enough money to get to the point where I could get a job doing it. But a year or so ago, my husband and I settled out of court with his insurance company, so we had a bunch of money sitting, and we didn't want to buy a house with it because of the way the housing market is these days. Figure school would be the most secure investment - nobody can foreclose on your education and take away your license, now, can they? :P

[mazikeen]

Welcome!!

I am too poor, plus I could no longer do a medical, but I do still love aircraft and flying... so WELCOME!!!

[lindenfoxcub]

I had to jump through some hoops for my medical. To get a commercial license, I need a category 1 medical, and when I was 20, I was diagnosed with aspergers, so I had to answer yes to the "do you have a psychological or neurological disorder" question. They wanted me to have my psychiatrist send them a letter confirming the severity and detailing what medications I'm prescribed so that they could determine whether to give me the cat 1 clearance, but I don't *have* a psychiatrist and I've never been prescribed any medications. Never needed it. When they realized that, they said to get my GP to send them a letter to confirm that I was on the near normal end of the spectrum, and they cleared my cat 1 medical based on that. But at least I shouldn't have to fuss with it in the future.

[lindenfoxcub]

I got my private license in about 70 hours, over 3 months. My school has a lot of different planes - more than most schools, and I think it's good to be able to get used to different models and different types of radios, gps, high wing, low wing, tail wheel, multi, laminar flow wing, glass cockpit - they even have a Pitts out at their other location. I've trained mostly on the c152, and just got my 172 checkout this week, but next week I'll be doing a Citabria checkout, and I'll want to do a floatplane and skiplane rating, as well as the multi and glass cockpit, so I don't think it will be really practical to buy my own plane unless it was one I planned to actually use to make money off of. Plus, the up-front cost of the plane would be pretty much everything I have, and there'd be nothing left for lessons.

I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say there's a 50 nm limit without and IFR rating - is that how it is in the US?

[scarybaldguy]

Yes. You can get a commercial cert in the US without IFR, but if you don't have your IFR, you can only fly commercial within 50nm of your home base. The idea behind this limitation was to allow ag pilots to do their thing without forcing them to obtain a rating that they would never use.

[lindenfoxcub]

Interesting - I don't think a commercial license has any distance restrictions, with or without an IFR rating. Just, without the IFR rating, you can't fly in IMC, so you're not terribly useful when it comes to going long distances, and you really just need to get the IFR rating. I know there's no restriction on the distance I'm allowed to fly on my private license.