This is just another post about someone pursuing their flying dreams. I totally get if you decide not to “subscribe”, “share”, and otherwise indulge in my life pursuits. Quite frankly, I’m writing this for myself. Call it an accountability tool, journal, or just a plain ol’ builders log. Whatever it be, I am here and going to be here for a while.
So what is this post all about?
Well, I am a younger private pilot with about 100 hours. I’m super fresh, and to have been flying for seven years and to have an extreme passion for flying means only one thing, the finances have held me back from more time in the sky. Oh well. Life happens.
But there is also another thing that is holding me back. Typically, when a pilot is asked why they got into flying in the first place, they have somewhat of an answer. However, through the last seven years of flying I have never found a single reason why I started loving this lifestyle. But as I have grown as a pilot and aviation lover I have quickly seen a pattern in the ambition I have as a pilot, and it involves flying upside down.
Let me explain. Unlike most, growing up I had no influence on aviation from a military standpoint, little from the airlines, but when I attended my first airshow (Dayton Airshow) I remember seeing the Brazilian formation team “Esquadria de Fumaça” flying close formation and aerobatics. I was amazed, I had never known airplanes could do stuff like that so elegantly. I quickly got engulfed in what it would be like to fly aerobatics in front of an audience. To give the same amazement I had as a teenager, to someone else in the future was something I so desperately wanted to do. It makes me feel all excited inside.
I quickly bought aerobatic and tailwheel books, practiced imaginary aerobatic routines in Patty Wagstaff’s Extra 300 on Microsoft Flight Simulator while pretending to walk through the routine in my room, and of course went to any airshow I could in hopes for the chance to pick aerobatic pilot’s brains a little (rarely happens).
So I am sure you are realizing where this is all going. There is this young millennial pilot (me) that thinks he can just become an airshow pilot… That’s where you are wrong.
I am creating a blog because, buying my way into the “sport”/”art” just isn’t possible. This blog is meant to document the SLOW progress towards making a dream that I have secretly had since a teenager into an eventual reality.
Yes, I am super inexperienced with hours of flight time. So that is obviously a priority in this journey.
But first lets lay out some key dream points I am going to be working on accomplishing in my pursuit…
– Build & finish a Christen Eagle (dream) or Pitts
– Get extensive aerobatic flight training
– Gain a commercial rating + other stuff
– Perform at an airshow
I hope at this point you are laughing and saying “in your dreams dude”, because if you are then you aren’t alone.
The beautiful thing is, I am so uninspired to prove anything to anyone. This is MY DREAM.
I hope you have a dream that sounds crazy too. Deep down you know you will achieve it as well.
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A little background into where I am at in other aspects of my life. So if you dig deep into this blog you can see it goes way back to pre-first flight lesson. Probably before I even hit puberty. I was going to create a completely new blog for this journey, but I figured doing it here was nostalgic and this would limit the time spent on the website and more focus on actually working towards the dream. Currently, I am a 20 something that is a founding partner at a creative branding and strategic marketing agency called Wilbur. We actually are fortunate enough to get to focus within aviation.
Building a business is almost as hard as building airplanes, so the juggle will be real. My client’s happiness and results are important to my professional goals, but this blog is about my personal goals. This is where you will see the progress that I have in my life past the work hours.
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So hopefully some of you can relate, enjoy, or hate this progress. Whatever this blog does for you, I am glad it may do something. But remember, it’s a way for me to keep reminded of the end goal in a public and possibly incredibly embarrassing way.
Until next time,
Ian (aka Pilot Ian)
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