About
It’s high time I actually wrote something here to replace the boring default WP text. I probably put it off because I always feel weird in these “tell me about yourself” type of situations.
Oh well.
I was born and raised in the vicinity of Raleigh, NC. I can’t really point to any particular event in my young life that pointed me to an interest in aviation. My only real exposure to aircraft as a child was due to our house apparently being on a low-altitude military training route; it was a fairly regular event for fighters to come screaming over the house at a few thousand feet. At my young age, they scared the crap out of me; I don’t ever recall looking up in wonder. Instead I was busy sprinting into the house for fear that I’d get bombed.
Still, through some unknown process, I developed an interest in aviation round about my tenth birthday or so. At the time, I’d never been in any airplane at all, but that didn’t stop me. My first flight experience came courtesy of my parents; during the summer of my eleventh year, we went on a joint beach vacation with my uncle and his family. It so happened that my birthday fell during this week, and I got what I thought was the coolest gift ever: a sightseeing trip in a Cessna 172. My dad graciously allowed me to occupy the front seat, and the pilot graciously permitted me to fly the airplane for a bit. I could barely see over the panel, and I did a pretty bad job of maintaining anything resembling level flight, but I was having too much fun to care.
Over the next few years, my interest in aviation kind of waned. I’d had early desires of becoming a military pilot, but I wore glasses, and I knew that was a disqualifier. Then my interest switched to cars, possibly because driving was a far more attainable goal than flying. Things stayed that way until I was about 20 or so. I found myself regularly visiting the observation deck at RDU and watching the airliners and occasional GA aircraft. I swore that one day I’d fly, but I had no immediate plans.
A few years later, I was attending North Carolina State University, and feeling a bit rudderless. I’d briefly researched the military, and at some point I discovered that the Navy had a two-year scholarship program. I went and talked with one of the NROTC staff officers, and discovered a wonderful thing- vision issues were no longer strictly disqualifying for prospective aviators. I applied for and received a scholarship, and spent the next two years wearing the uniform on a weekly basis, spouting jargon, and thoroughly believing that I was only a few years from the cockpit of a Hornet. Unfortunately, my classwork did not support this goal at all. Bad study habits and general laziness resulted in me first losing any chance at naval aviation, and later separating from the Navy altogether.
Yet another setback, and it was followed by a few more years of sort of marking time. I spent my time away from work checking out a local flying club, reasoning that I ought to be able to save up the money if I put my mind to it. For the next few years, flying remained in a sort of permanent “almost” status. I was always telling myself that in six months or so, I’d be able to get the money saved up to get started.
Things continued to change. I finally left behind the dead-end restaurant job and moved to Chattanooga, TN, to work with my brother in web development. I thought I was finally going to be pulling in the funds necessary to get started. Alas, but it didn’t happen; business went down the drain, and I found myself struggling just to pay bills. After a year and a half, I was in the middle of a serious job hunt. I had extended my search outside Chattanooga to Atlanta due to a lack of jobs in Tennessee. On my second ATL interview, I hit pay dirt, and a month later, I was living in my third state. But the financial side continued to elude me; I was making a fair salary, but I’d frankly been a bit overzealous in my selection of housing. Still, I was doing better than ever before. This time, I really was going to start in six months- well, I told myself this, but after seven or so years of that song and dance, I had a hard time even believing myself.
It was in the midst of this self-doubt that I got perhaps the best gift of my entire life. I got an offer to have my private certificate paid for in full, and from a man I’d only known for six months. It’s a credit to him that in that short time, he accurately identified something that would be hugely meaningful to me. It was this offer that led me to resurrect this blog- I’d initially started it years before, with the purpose of chronicling that flight training that I was about to start. Now I really was about to start, and I wanted to share it with the world, or at least the four or five people who might accidentally stumble across this thing.
Now, as I write this, I’ve amassed a stunning 7.2 hours of flight time. I’m having the time of my life- flying is great fun, but also challenging. It’s been a long road with lots of obstacles- most of them self-made- but here I am. Here’s hoping that I have plenty to write about here for years to come.
