I’ll bet that was fun.

Hey in Oklahoma there is almost ALWAYS a crosswind. Many pilots come to Oklahoma just to learn the skills of crosswind takeoff and landings.

One of the times we took off it was near the maximum cross wind. As soon as we rotated, I was looking straight down the runway out the side window. We lifted off, and rotated two directions at once. The windsock was straight out. Landing was interesting as well.

That pilot is the instructor I mentioned. He said a family came in to the place where he worked as an instructor and their 14 year old son's birthday present was a one hour ride in an airplane. It was really windy and he told the family, it will be a rough flight and not a nice calm first flight. The parents wanted the kid scared so he would give up on his desire to be a pilot. The kid was not going to be talked out of it. So they took off and he immediately had to crank it sideways and the kid was giggling like a well, a little kid. He loved every bump and maneuver. He let the kid take the yoke and steer and he was in love with flying. Landing was rough and the kid was thrilled.

He ended up taking lessons and got his ticket when he turned 16.

ah what fun. I wish I had had the time and money as a kid to get a pilots lic.

It is cheaper than buying a kid a new car, or sending them to college! There is indeed a real shortage of pilots now.

Those are the flights I loved flying as well. They are NOT boring when you have the yoke. They are really not boring when you have the yoke and you are under the hood. They are the best when you have the yoke, under the hood and the instructor takes they plane and yanks it all over the sky and releases the controls and expects you to recover while looking only at the instruments. I liked it less when the attitude indicator gyro could not keep up with the insufferable son of. Actually, he was the best instructor for anything I have ever had, but he would get ahead of the gyro and expect me to not use the attitude indicator to recover since it would be off a bit.

It was a whole lot cheaper when you were a kid than now. Hourly rentals are about 3x what it cost when I was learning. Oddly, the instructor time has not changed a lot.

My dad talked about learning instruments "under the hood" in the Air Force and he had taken off, and was flying what he thought was the flight plan. The instructor said "my plane" and dad let go, instantly they were banking real hard, and gaining altitude. He was figuring had messed up and was about to crash into something. The instructor said you were doing fine, but there were buzzards ahead. That instructor had lost one pilot trainee to buzzards and they had crashed when the large bird came through the canopy and hit the pilot in the chest. The instructor took no chances and just wanted to get away from the circling buzzards. He of course said now get back on the flight plan from here.

Well after 2001 they took away that option for me. One seizure and poof no can fly a plane no more.

Drivers license? Look at light sport. Get a J3 or Champ for $15k-$20k and you are all set. Or for a butt ton more money and considering where you live, an Icon.

I'll stick to the 911 as a money pit. LOL

They are all oil cooled! I would have a hard time with a fabric covered plane, truth be told.

buy a fabric covered 911

I already have a fabric (with epoxy resin in it) car. I don't need another!

Funny how good we are at spending other peoples money!

kids in college are doing a dang fine job of that right now.

Isn't that where we learn how to do it properly?

Cool, my insurance rebate check came today. Since we have no claims on the house or car wrecks, they send me money back. It is just the rebate on the premiums I have paid, and the insurance is cheap.

It sure makes it nice that we spent the extra money for the hail resistant roof. Virtually all the folks in our neighborhood got a new roof. Ours survived with no real damage. And we are both good drivers with no accidents or tickets in over 30 years.

morning all. found us on page two. I think we are all fired.

Clearly, it’s my fault. :(

unless you have a good excuse like wrenching on the car.

I was busy actually working. I had the computer using 99 to 100% of the RAM (32 gig) and the CPU was pegged out at 100% and the hard drives churning, and the GPU was at 22%.

I guess I could have gotten online with the laptop, but MY internal brain was maxed out as well.