Full Power on My Fun Meter

Exploring California

This weekend, I’m planning on completing a checkout at a different flying club at Palo Alto Airport (PAO), West Valley Flying Club (WVFC). I decided to switch over to WVFC  because I enjoy flying Piper Warriors and Archers, and they have 11 of them available to fly at PAO and San Carlos (SQL). Right now, I only have the ability to fly 1 aircraft, a Warrior at Advantage Aviation, but given some of the issues I’ve noted throughout the year with the aircraft (read “A Cruel Summer“), I decided it was time to give myself more options. I recognize that the Warrior at Advantage is a beauty to fly, when it’s flyable…which is probably why it has more issues (more people fly it). I wish I could have scheduled the aircraft to fly up to Sacramento on Thanksgiving to visit my friend Patrick at his new place, but the landing light switch is out and I’d like to have that just in case I get caught in a situation when I need to return in the evening (and the days are much shorter now).

So it got me thinking…my next big aviation goal isn’t another rating, but it’s to get to 125 hours so I can move up my BMW in the sky, the Cirrus! Now granted if I went out and bought a Cirrus, I could fly it after a flew hours with a flight instructor. But I don’t own one, the club does and they have RULES! Those rules (based on insurance) state that the minimum number of hours for a pilot to fly their high performance aircraft is 125 hrs. Right now, I’m at about 90 hours, so I have another 35 to go. So then I thought, “well, right now I fly about 3 hours a month…which over 12 months…is 36 hrs. But most of the flying I’ve been doing since I earned my license has been in the Bay Area, and I love to travel. But I can’t fly to most of the places I truly love to travel to…like Europe, Vancouver, Chicago…etc. However, what I can do is expand my flying options outside of the Bay Area to the Greater State of California.” And then, my 2010 goal popped in my head….I’ll plan on doing at least 1 cross country flight each month. Doing so, will allow me to improve my flight planning skills, increase my hours, my experiences, and allow me to see more areas of this great state.

So here’s a few places I think I’ll shoot for next year:

• Healdsburg (as mentioned on my Travel Blog)
• Paso Robles (pictures from my flight with Bradley last year)
• Yosemite
• San Luis Obispo
• Santa Barbara
• Van Nuys
• Sacramento (pictures from my flight with Patrick earlier this year)

I think it’d be kinda cool to work all week and then takeoff on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning for a day in one of these places – renting bikes, hiking, wine tasting, having a nice dinner, sleeping a decent hotel, and waking up the next day to fly home. Now that’s what being a pilot is all about…increasing your possibilities…going full power on the fun meter. And the good thing is, I can do this on the same budget I use now to fly an hour here, an hour there, every other weekend or so.

Sounds like a plan…I’m down…who’s coming with me?