How old are you ? How old, when you started to fly ?

PPL checkride at 39, now 41.

I was 46 when I had my first trial flight as a birthday present from my wife. I took to it like a duck to water and immediately became very keen to progress. Luckily I had a mad /reckless/ bold/ talented first instructor who sent me solo after 7 hours 55 mins and that guaranteed that I got completely hooked. Ten years later I’m 56 with a PPL and an IRR(R) that I’m just revalidating and I own a 27 year old TB20 which I love, and which needs love and attention, which is part of the fun.

I’d love to have started flying when I was young, but I recognise that family commitments, career commitments and lack of money would all have been huge constraining factors back then, unless I had made flying my career which I never considered. Pity.

Now that I’m older, the money is not a constraining factor for the sort of flying that I do but having a senior position at work does constrain me in terms of available time. I’d like to have more freedom to just take off an afternoon or a couple of days at the drop of a hat. Difficult to do that and still keep the customers and my colleagues happy.

It’s a great hobby and I love the magic carpet feeling of getting somewhere far away in just two hours.

denopa wrote:

At 34, got offered a job that meant 3 months off work when I couldn’t travel because of kids’ school. Did my PPL in a month at Denham with now defunct Cabair. Flew 20h the following year (combination of complications with booking aircraft at the club, family (3 kids so we can’t travel in a pa28) and the ’08 crash meaning I was doing 14h days), decided to give up, then heard from a friend that White Waltham had a six seater for rent. Agreed with my wife that if we could fly as a family, it was a hobby worth pursuing.

Went there and talked to the CFI David Coe about flying it, made a plan with him (PA28R then IMC rating then PA32) which rather amazingly worked. At 108h of which 70 dual I was flying a high performance single all around the UK and France with my family onboard, which is in retrospect somewhat scary.

The next great bit of luck came when my wife did the safety pilot course at White Waltham, showed great talent for it and loved it, did her PPL and IMC rating (now IR(R)).

Great story, very inspiring. Just read it to my wife (who has yet to fly with me). At 31 and with as of yet two kids I hope to follow your footsteps someday (a PA-46 would also be fantastic but hard to finance on a doctor’s salary along with a house, the latter of which has priority for us).

PPL at 22 now 46… over half of my life…but I grew up with small planes in Latin America (MAF)
IR at 29
FAA 61.75 (PPL+IR) at 45
Celebrating the first anniversery with my SR22 soon :)

Flew with my father since i was 10 (1969), did my PPL with 35
MEP @ 37
Aerobatics @ 38
German IFR @ 42
CRI @ 47
(57 now)

I’m 25. My first flying lesson was at age 14 from EGKA, and I remember that all I could think about for weeks after that lesson was getting back in the air again. I started having flying lessons at the rate of one a month at age 15. I was almost ready to go solo by the time my 16th birthday came around but a combination of multiple important exams at school and maybe a dose of immaturity got the better of me. Around the time I was 16 I started to become a bit of a hangar rat at a local farm strip with 10 aircraft, and I had a lot of flying opportunities from that.

Over the next 9 years I planned to save up to finish my PPL, but had several false starts, saving up a few thousand then spending it on travelling instead, but still flying on and off in the right seat with friends. Finally at age 24 I managed to arrange three months off work over winter at the beginning of 2017 and went to Malta to do my PPL.

Now I’m doing my best to fly every week, which so far is working out nicely. In the future I’d like to get my tailwheel endorsement. I’m desperate not to become someone who has their licence to do the minimum 12 hours when they have to and just stay in the circuit for a few touch and goes, I want this to gain experience and become one of the seat of the pants pilots I’ve admired since I flew from that farm strip. Fingers crossed I can make it happen.

I’m 25.

If I observed this thread correctly this makes you the youngest member here! Lot’s of people are 26 though, apparently.

Frist lesson at 13, first solo at 16, now 45…

We have a your first lesson thread which is quite funny to read

I was 43 and the instructor said he had a total time of 150hrs! Actually he was very good. I never flew with him again; apparently he had moved on before my 2nd lesson.

It’s great to see so many young people here. These are the people who need the most encouragement and support, presumably because of so many competing pressures in life.