Official member of the AOPA

Today I renewed my membership with the AOPA. I recommend anyone that is a pilot join this fine organization. The AOPA looks out for General Aviation (GA) pilots and helps to keep us flying. Even if you are not a pilot, you can learn a lot about GA from the site: http://www.aopa.org.

Also, I received my DVD of "One Six Right" in the mail today from Sporty's Pilot Shop. This DVD is a documentary of the Van Nuys (KVNY) airport in Los Angeles, California. It is a great film! It was shot in HD with Dolby Digital surround. It looked spectacular on our HDTV and sounded like you were there. Anyone interested in flying will like this DVD: http://www.onesixright.com/

Let's begin

Well, all of my friends have been advising me to keep a blog of my experiences in flying, so today I'm starting this blog as a public log of my flight training and future flights.

A little background

My father-in-law, also an aviation enthusiast and ex-USAF mechanic, helped me get interested again. I also have two friends that are pilots that helped me get excited about learning to fly again. It also helps to have a wife that supports you 100% and asks you every day if you signed up for lessons! I bought a few books a little over six months ago and started learning about aeronautics and aviation. I read the following books to get me started:

• Rod Machado's Private Pilot Handbook


• William Kershner's The Student Pilot's Flight Manual


• FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge


• ASA FAR/AIM 2006

And so it begins...

Today, after checking out a few other flight schools in the area, I signed up for lessons at The Flight School of Gwinnett at Gwinnett County-Briscoe Field (KLZU). What appealed to me about this one were the personalities of the CFIs and the owners, and the fact that they had a large fleet of aircraft with a lot of modern C172s. The Flight School is also a certified Cessna Training Center.

I signed up for my first three lessons starting on April 3, 2006. I plan on taking three lessons a week (weather permitting of course!). I received my Cessna Training Kit with the ground school instruction, POH, and Pilot Log. I'm looking forward to my first time up.