EAA Young Eagles

[PitbullMidwest]

Our local chapter of the EAA held their annual "Young Eagles Day" yesterday and we took our kids out for a flight. You might remember that my wife won a scholarship from Cessna and is learning to fly so we thought getting them up in the air a few times prior to flying with mom would be a good idea.

My son Caleb, age 8, flew in a Piper Cub and proclaimed afterwards " That was the greatest experience of my entire life!!" Emily, age 11, was not nearly as impressed. She is more than willing to wait till mom gets her license before going on another flight.

I even took the opportunity to fly in a homebuilt "Challenger" experimental. I still look like this:/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

BTW my wife is on track to solo in two more lessons.

 

[dlabrie]

In NH a friend of mine won a Crista Mculiff scholarship to take a years sabbatical to promote flying in middle and high school. Students spend the year doing their ground school work and using a flight simulator. In May or June the kids get to fly with the Eagle volunteers. My son did it last year in 6th grade. He was grinning from ear to ear when he stepped out of the Cessna.
What a great program!

 

[Thomas]

I sure do tip my hat to your wife,and Iam sure your very..very proud of her.

 

[njrqs]

PBMW

What is the EAA?

Hey great to see you are getting the whole family involved in the flying caper. You'll need a fatter wallet !!!

Congrats to your wife in advance for the solo. It is one of life's most memerable exoeriences, one etched in your mind for ever.

My little fella is nearly 2 and wants to come out and look at the plane each time I go for a fly. Do you think he looks ready???

Cheers

PS - Just answered my own question here
http://www.americanwings.org/eagles.htm

 

[dmccarty]

NJRQS,

EAA is the Experimental Aircraft Association. They have quite a few
magazines on different aircraft such as ultralights, experimentals,
old military planes, etc. The EAA has workshops all of the US on
subjects so that you can build your own aircraft. I've only been a
member since late last year but they seem to be a friendly bunch
of people and willing to help out others.

Looks like the Little Fella is about to take off! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later...
Dan

 

[njrqs]

Dan

Sounds interesting. Do you own a plane?

Cheers

 

[dmccarty]

njrqs,

Nope, don't have an airplane. I do see them fly over my property
all the time though! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I have always loved to fly and wanted to get a pilots license which
is one reason I joined the EAA. I ended up getting two of their
magazines. I wanted to the old warbirds magazine but I already
get something like 24 different magazines so I have to control
myself. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I knew owning a plane was expensive but reading these magazines
really is a shock to see the costs. Even the home built planes, which
really look nice, are expensive not to mention how much time the
people put into them. But the EAA seems to have lots of classes
for people who want to learn the skill to build their own planes. And
they seem to have many people will to help home builders. Very
TBN like.

I have enough land to operate a ultralight. Might actually have enough
to operate a light plane. But I don't know if the FAA would allow it.
I'm sure the neighbors would hate it. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Is aircraft ownership as expensive on your side of the world?

Later...
Dan

 

[njrqs]

Dan

Yes, aircraft ownership is very expensive here. I don't own a plane, instead hiring from the Aero Club here.

The 172 I fly costs $150 per hour. This includes fuel of about $40/hr, so $110/hour for the plan is pretty good I think.

Considering it is worth along the lines of maybe $80,000 and the rego, insurance, parking costs and MAINTENANCE that go along with it, the cost of hiring is pretty cheap I reckon.

Maybe one day when I am rich /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I might buy one but I can't see richness coming along any time soon.

Cheers

 

[dmccarty]

$150 per hour! OUCH. Is that a converted to US money?

I was trying to read a couple of my EAA magazines last night,
kinda hard with a 2 year old that wants to play with daddy /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif,
and I saw a letter to the mag about an engine for one of these
small planes and it was 10,000 US dollars. They where trying to
figure out what kind of prop to put on the engine.

And I thought tractors where expensive! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I think I'll just
run the RPMs up on the old JD, flap my arms, and pretend I'm
flying! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Later...
Dan

 

[PitbullMidwest]

Neil,
A less expensive alternative here in the States are homebuilts and experimentals, do they have these in Oz? My wife is only comfortable in factory built aircraft at this point, on the other hand I'll try to con my way into a ride in any type of aircraft.

At the Young Eagle Day I was introduced to a local pilot who built a <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.quadcitychallenger.com>Challenger</A> and took me for a ride. It's built in Moline Illinois (up in cowboydoc's neck of the woods), is very popular and is very economical to fly and maintain.

When I suggested to my wife that we should look in to building one after she gets her license, she replyed "And it costs about the same as the tractor and impliments you're looking at." At that point I just shut up. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif