First Class

Tonight was the first class. Mainly an introduction. It was great! I learned a lot of outstanding questions I had, which I'll write up below. I have one outstanding question I'm not sure of, and that's below as well.

General Info

To start with, it was AWESOME! I'm very excited about this. The wife got me the perfect gift! There are about 12 in the class, and the age range is all over. The classroom itself is pretty small, but it serves the purpose. There are younger kids around 16, and older men who look to be in their late 50's. Everyone is very friendly. Extremely friendly. Snacks are provided during a break in the class. Classes meet twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays for 12 weeks.

Background

The whole class is setup and funded by Turning Point, which is a church organization. The instructor volunteers for free, as does his daughter and her husband. The people helping with the class are straight-forward and transparent about their beliefs, welcome anyone to talk about their beliefs as well, and most importantly, they don't push their ideas on anyone. This is the Christianity I love. Everything has become about selling so much that it's a breath of fresh air when someone is just clear about their intentions and let you decide. The amount of volunteers that go into making sure people can enjoy the experience of flying is staggering.

Costs

The class itself cost $390. This is for the Ground School only. I actually forgot to bring the cash I had laid out at home. They were perfectly fine with it - told me to just pay next time. Very friendly and understanding people. A piece of paper was given with me after the registration that explained the costs. The $390 included the two textbooks we're going to use, which I'll describe later. There's another fee of $1,000 for the training plane. What I'm confused on is what this includes. I don't know if it's a deposit or the cost of the plane for the whole class. There was a breakout of hourly rates which showed $110 an hour. It said the training plane was covered for 70 hours. So, I'm not exactly sure how that works. $1,400 is extremely inexpensive to get a pilot's license. It would make more sense if it was an hourly basis at $110, and the $1,000 guarantees the plane for 70 hours or something like that.

Class Coverage

Licenses

The instructor discussed the two different types of licenses we could get.

Private Pilot's License

There are some limitations and rules the pertain to the Private Pilot's License. I don't remember them all, but there are some highlights that stood out. First, you can't do any flying for hire or compensation. You can split the costs of flying, but that's it. There are some restrictions on how many hours you have to have logged before you can fly someone, etc.

Sports License

With this type of license, you do pretty much the exact same as the Private Pilot's license. The major exceptions are:

1. You don't have to pass the FAA 3rd class medical - just a valid driver's license.
2. You can't fly at night.
3. There's a maximum weight limit much lower than the private license.
4. You can't fly for your personal business.
5. You can't have more than two people in flight.
6. The landing gear can't be retractable.

Class Material

From the looks of it, there's a lot of technical know-how, but not overly demanding. There is a lot of reading required I have to read about 30 pages by Thursday (two days) and another 40 pages by the following Tuesday. Just a preview of what's going to be covered by the instructor involved aerodynamics and wind forces for the coming two lessons. I got some basic tools that I don't even know the names of yet also included with the two textbooks.

Summary

Okay, so I'll get pictures of the textbooks to post later, and possibly on a later post or a page attached to this blog. Also, as the material gets in more depth, I'll post more details of what's being covered. I'm really, really excited! It's going to be awesome! What's more comforting is that many of the people in the class are terrified of heights as well, which is just funny. It makes me feel much better knowing there are others like me.

One last note: I'm a really big person. I'm 6'-1" and over 350 lbs. I'm told I don't look it, but I just think I have really nice friends. My wife already checked and was told that I'm not too big to fly. So, for those of you thinking you might be too big, you probably aren't. There's another big guy in the class as well, and it doesn't look like it's a problem for him either.