I recently started to give shape to one of my childhood dreams - becoming a pilot. I've been a member of my university's very own
flying club since the last six months. Alongwith getting to know fellow aviation enthusiasts in school and learning a lot about airplanes, I also get to fly one!
Me with Cessna-172P N53527, Fulton county airport, GA
Our club currently owns 3 single-engine and 1 multi-engine Cessna trainer airplanes and has flight instructors experienced with over 500-1000 hours of flight time. All at relatively subsidized rates as this is a club run entirely by Gatech alumni and students. Its a great opportunity to pursue. All thanks to my mum and dad who were vitally encouraging and gave me the push I needed. Mum, Dad, if you're reading this.. I love you a lot and I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without you!
So I've begun training for my Private Pilot license. It definitely isn't all play and no work. First I had to get govt. clearance being a non US citizen. Then there are two steps in getting a license - written knowledge test and the final flying test with an official, called the "Checkride". Before you can get there, one has to study a LOT (as if, being a Computer Science graduate student, I didn't have enough to study already!). So to get started, I joined Ground training school last semester and studied about aerodynamics, weather, airspaces, runway-taxiway signs and interpreting charts(maps). Being completely new to most of this stuff, it has been quite a challenge and I hope to pass my written test in the next couple of months. *looking upwards and praying*.
There is naturally a waiting list in the club to start flying as there are more students than instructors can devote time to. I was lucky to get assigned an instructor in mid-December and so there was no way I wanted to go away from Atlanta for winter vacation even though all my friends headed home to their families in India. You gain some you lose some. (among the 'lose' some is also all my weekend morning sleep which I used to dearly look forward to..) It was going to be a headstart to get to fly as much as possible during the holidays before semester begins and I'd have to squeeze these sessions between overworked weekends. And so I had my first flight lesson on Dec 24th :)
It has been around 8 hours of flying for me as of this day. And every hour of this, I have experienced this chest-swelling joy of having wings of steel and freedom.... More details one at a time..
The words of Creed seem apt to express myself:
Up high I feel like I'm alive
for the very first time...
Set up high I'm strong enough
to take these dreams
And make them mine...
