“Cherokee 47540, Palo Alto Tower. Cleared for take off.” And with that it was Lights-Camera-Action….Landing lights and Strobes on. Transponder to Alt. And mixture and throttle to full. Lights-Camera-Action. Roll down the runway, pull back on the yoke at 55 kts, a lil right rudder to compensate for the torque of the engine, and then I am airborne.

A month ago, I started my greatest adventure: learning to fly!

I know everyone says it, but ever since I was young I wanted to fly. Growing up under the approach end of a major military base, a day didn’t go by without looking up at an airplane in the sky. Toss in my fair share of airshows with my parents when I was younger, and that interest turned into the beginnings of a lifelong passion. When I had the chance to choose my “profession,” I decided to get a Computer Engineering degree from Santa Clara University. But even then, and for the next 12 years, I always wondered “What if…”

Photo Courtesy of Tim McIntosh

Last December I guess you can say I had a life altering experience. On the heels of turning 30 and after accomplishing a dream of mine to fly in a Fighter Jet, I was on my way to Salinas to meet up with Chelsea Engberg from CubCrafters to do a photoshoot of their Sport Cub S2. The plan was to meet Chelsea and fly a Piper J-3 Cub down to King City, CA.  As I wrote in my blog from that day. “Cruising at 65Kts at 500? above highway 101, we were flying down to King City, CA. And what flying it was! Chelsea gave me the stick for the whole 45 min flight and I was having a blast. Seeing our shadow over the green fields, the cars moving just as fast as we were, and the birds trying to keep up with us was amazing. The highlight of my flight was chasing down the Amtrak Coast Starlight as it headed south along the tracks.  Caught her just before we got to King City and did a sharp left turn over it and entered right base for runway 29.”  And that was it. I was hooked! I knew I had to get my license.

So I set out asking some of my friends and family what the next step is. I also reviewed AOPA’s informative website for new pilots at http://flighttraining.aopa.org/ There was a lot of information to absorb. One of the people I spoke to was my editor at In Flight USA. I was mentioning that this was something I was looking into and after a while, we figured this would be a great story to share with their readers. So with their support, I set out to find the next piece in puzzle, a flight school. Luckily within 30 minutes, I had 3 world class General Aviation airports and a plethora of flight schools. And after visiting a couple of them and speaking with my pilot friends, I selected West Valley Flying Club at Palo Alto Airport. Their safety record, selection of aircraft and proximity to my work/home was exactly what I was looking for.

Then it was time to choose an instructor. Some say that this is the most important part of learning to fly because you will be spending so much time with this person.  A good relationship is very important and being able to have effective communication is key. I was lucky enough to be paired with Josh Smith, the GM at West Valley Flying Club. I’m not a 100% sure, but I think Josh learned flying from Orville and Wilbur.  (Just kidding Josh!!!) But Josh has thousands of hours and I couldn’t think of a cooler guy to learn from and spend my 50+ hours of training with.

Once that was taken care of it was time to get the foundation laid and get my text books to help prepare me for the FAA Written exam. With many choices out there, I chose to go with the the Jeppesen Private Pilot Kit. I was unsure if I had made the right choice, but when I walked into Josh’s office, I saw that he had the Jeppesen GFD Private Pilot Textbook. All was well.

Then the only other important piece of equipment I needed was a headset. That was an easy choice. Having been in and around airplanes for over 7 years, the one headset that was always in the cockpit was Lightspeed. Quiet and comfortable. I wanted a good experience and the one thing I didn’t want to have to worry about when flying was my headset. So I got a Zulu. One of the top rated headsets out there, I know that is the something that will last me for a long time.

With all the pieces in place, all that was left was to jump in my Piper Warrior II and get up in the air where I belong.  Join me over the next few months as I share my experiences as I follow my dream and go after my private pilots license.  And as always, please leave a comment. Got some tips to share? Questions you want me to answer? Or want to wish me luck? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Adventures, Aviation, Life, Photography, Soaring With Sagar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.