So I bought a plane...
Apr. 12th, 2018 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandora_parrot5 years ago, I finally had all my debts paid off for the first time in my life. The first thing I decided to do, before starting to save money and do all that financial stuff you're supposed to do, was get my pilot's license so that I could fly airplanes. It's something I had always dreamed of doing, and I really wanted to do it. I found the most trans friendly flying club I could find and went for it. 3 months later, I had my pilot's license.
Along the years of flying, I've always been disappointed with my inability to really *use* flying for anything. You see... If you don't own your own plane, you're beholden to the rules, regulations, and schedules of the club that you rent from and fly with.
My first club was pretty lax on all of this stuff... I could wander into the club at any time, and as long as no one else was scheduled to have a plane, I could take it and go flying for as long as I wanted, pretty much wherever I wanted, with no extra fees. But with those lax rules came a lot of lax maintenance as well. Those planes started to look a little scary to me.
The rest of the clubs I flew with all had desk clerks who would hand out the keys for the airplane when you came in. Alas, this meant that planes were only available during typical business hours. If you wanted to schedule an airplane after hours, you'd have to make sure to let them know while they were still in the office. No last minute 8pm evening flights with them! Also? If you wanted to keep it overnight anywhere, you had to make sure you were doing at least 3 hours a day of flying. Any less, and they'd charge you for the full daily minimum anyways.
That basically relegated me to flying on silly little joyrides and $100 hamburger runs. But even those get cramped at the club I'm flying with nowadays, because I have to basically schedule every flight I wanna do 2-3 weeks in advance due to how much training is going on there. Last minute flights are just out of the question.
The joyrides and stuff are fun enough, for sure. But I want to fly for a purpose. I want to travel, go places, visit people, help my friends get around, etc. Like, I have friends and family all up and down the west coast, but visiting them on our tight schedule never works out. I want to do road-trips-in-the-sky. Visit random cities. Just explore our world. Like picking up a friend from So-cal a year or so ago. That felt amazing. To be able to fly down and pick him up instead of forcing him to take a train or commercial flight. And being trans, that certainly was a lot less painful.
So since those early days, it has been a dream of mine to own my own plane, so that I can just go wherever I want, whenever I want, on my own schedule. There's a price premium for it, to be sure, but the extra charges are just annual costs for the most part. The hourly rate to fly your own plane is just the gas you use while you do it. Oh, and oil, ofc.
WELP. I did it. I bought a plane. At least, as of tomorrow, I will have bought a plane. We close tomorrow on the deal. They get a boatload of cash, and I get a plane to fly. I'll post pictures once it arrives here, as it's out on the east coast right now. :)
I look forward to doing all manner of trips in the coming months! But first, TRAINING!
Along the years of flying, I've always been disappointed with my inability to really *use* flying for anything. You see... If you don't own your own plane, you're beholden to the rules, regulations, and schedules of the club that you rent from and fly with.
My first club was pretty lax on all of this stuff... I could wander into the club at any time, and as long as no one else was scheduled to have a plane, I could take it and go flying for as long as I wanted, pretty much wherever I wanted, with no extra fees. But with those lax rules came a lot of lax maintenance as well. Those planes started to look a little scary to me.
The rest of the clubs I flew with all had desk clerks who would hand out the keys for the airplane when you came in. Alas, this meant that planes were only available during typical business hours. If you wanted to schedule an airplane after hours, you'd have to make sure to let them know while they were still in the office. No last minute 8pm evening flights with them! Also? If you wanted to keep it overnight anywhere, you had to make sure you were doing at least 3 hours a day of flying. Any less, and they'd charge you for the full daily minimum anyways.
That basically relegated me to flying on silly little joyrides and $100 hamburger runs. But even those get cramped at the club I'm flying with nowadays, because I have to basically schedule every flight I wanna do 2-3 weeks in advance due to how much training is going on there. Last minute flights are just out of the question.
The joyrides and stuff are fun enough, for sure. But I want to fly for a purpose. I want to travel, go places, visit people, help my friends get around, etc. Like, I have friends and family all up and down the west coast, but visiting them on our tight schedule never works out. I want to do road-trips-in-the-sky. Visit random cities. Just explore our world. Like picking up a friend from So-cal a year or so ago. That felt amazing. To be able to fly down and pick him up instead of forcing him to take a train or commercial flight. And being trans, that certainly was a lot less painful.
So since those early days, it has been a dream of mine to own my own plane, so that I can just go wherever I want, whenever I want, on my own schedule. There's a price premium for it, to be sure, but the extra charges are just annual costs for the most part. The hourly rate to fly your own plane is just the gas you use while you do it. Oh, and oil, ofc.
WELP. I did it. I bought a plane. At least, as of tomorrow, I will have bought a plane. We close tomorrow on the deal. They get a boatload of cash, and I get a plane to fly. I'll post pictures once it arrives here, as it's out on the east coast right now. :)
I look forward to doing all manner of trips in the coming months! But first, TRAINING!
