Reply To: In year four a Trojan coach should be expected to beat

[Butkus51]

Good story Bruddah Java.  U got guts learning how to fly a plane.

1981, there was a tennis tournament in Phoenix.  It was held in  May.  A tennis friend & player was an experience pilot, who logged in 2300 hours.  He invited me and another player to fly with him to Phoenix.  The other friend said OK, but I said no.  I will go and fly with SouthWest Air.  After 2 weeks of harassment, I caved in.

His plane was a Piper, single engine, 4 seats with decent luggage space.  We left Van Nuys AP, around 7:00 am.  Thank God it was a nice, clear spring day.  Heck, during the take off, man dat Piper had very good power.  He flew about 10,000 ft at 130 knots or 150 mph.  The trip took under 3 hours.  Heck as we were descending, it got bumpy.  He said it was due to Thermal heat bouncing off the ground back into the air.  Said it was normal flying the Southwestern states

The flight back home was pretty good too.  I was impressed with his flying and pilot abilities.  Shoot, the air traffic nearing Los Angeles got busy and he was in deep concentration listening and talking to the air controllers.

I think flying private planes is OK, but you had better fly with only an A+, experience pilot.  My pilot friend said, he goes up and fly most weekends to other  states to put in the hours and even during bad conditions.  He said flying is all about flying in all kinds of weather and putting in da flying hours.  Dat’s how one become a good pilot.  He said if one gets nervous with bumpy rides, flying over the high Sierra’s mountain range gets really rough and challenging,

Oh, yeah he got to fly in other countries as well (using their planes).  He said flying in Europe and the Alps mountains is the worst.  Said, it is really rough flying the Alps mountains.

A Big Shaka to all the pilots…  Cheers