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Late introduction - new member from Germany

Well although I have already contributed (and read) a lot in the forums so far, I think that I should finally also give some introduction to myself.

Coming from a flying family and being in touch with this “world” since new-born I started piloting gliders when 16 years old, and did some quite intensive cross-country flying. In the last maybe 15 years, however, I didn’t have the need / opportunity / time / funds to fly a lot, but had my kids growing and a house joined in to look after. I also had to establish my career (am a patent attorney) as unfortunateIy someone forgot to bring the pot of gold when I was born :-) And you can bet that you can do a lot of nice things with the family for the money involved with flying – when regarded on a “return of invest” basis.

Now things have changed significantly. For one thing the maintenance requirements which have improved a lot, among some changes of the personal situation, and I started to think again over, if not to give a full restart on this fascinating hobby. Talked to my wife, and she was so inspired, that it didn’t need a second thought. Having all the experience I collected in 25 years of flying, I know that in many (if not most) cases it is the pilot’s wife who decides whether a personal aircraft will be used for a prolonged period, or not (don’t mean to offend nobody, just my personal experience and I have seen a lot).

The next steps had been very quick. There was accidentally one of the rare Turbo Comanches on sale, which I’ve read a lot about, but never really thought that I would find one. I think of it to be a smart spot to start with (which is true also for the NA Comanche, but I wanted a Turbo), and, who knows, it might even turn out to be an adequate member (not too small, not too big) of the family forever (which, according to some people, seems to be the fate of the Comanches: They tend to get loved to death :-).

So after some hard nights decision was made and here we are. Initially I planned to buy a plane maybe in 2022 after the IR rating. But it seems as if it had been very lucky indeed, when looking at the development of used aircraft prices.

I’m actually in the process of making my CB-IR, will have to sit the theory exam as soon as I get an invitation for it, and will start on the practical part thereafter. Another thing which improved a lot, because I can easily do most part of it on my plane (if not all) and this will significantly reduce the bill here, raising the return of invest of my plane a bit.

Now my intentions on what I am looking for are, for example, that I want to get in touch with other pilots, maybe even “flying families”, what I sadly find to be rather rare (however there are of course many reasons for this, and you really need a lot of commitment to keep flying in that phase of life). We are half german half spanish, open-minded, and eager to get to see and learn all parts of Europe. Our kids are 1 and 3 y/o (however, when looking at the flight logs, there are at least 5 POB practically any time we fly..).

So we’re extending the range a lot (at least the plans for it, due to pandemic reasons of course), and I’m learning a lot about VFR and IFR flying in Europe, and at the same time making new trip plans which were unthinkable before. And it’s great to see that such a wealth of information can be found here. If the circumstances do not change a lot this year, we’ll start out our trip plans and take along our tent. We can very well enjoy anything between that and five star accomodation, we’re just fine in any mountain shelter from an alpine club, for example :-)

Ah, numbers; I’ve done anything between paragliding and single engine below 2 tons, but most of my flying experience had been accumulated in gliders and (at the moment) equally SEP and microlight aircraft. On fixed-wing aircraft I logged more than 1100 hours so far, all VFR of course, but yet to come IFR soon.

Germany

@UdoR wilkommen y bienvenido, good to see your PA-24 has been well adopted by your family. Well built aircraft and aesthetically maybe the nicest looking SEP :)

Have flown the PA-30 but alas no time on the PA-24

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Willkommen ;)

always learning
LO__, Austria

UdoR wrote:

Our kids are 1 and 3 y/o (however, when looking at the flight logs, there are at least 5 POB practically any time we fly..).

Great! Seems like you can give a lesson or two about family flying! I really like to see families in GA and it seems in your case it paid off since you are also coming from one!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Welcome UdoR !

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Antonio wrote:

Seems like you can give a lesson or two about family flying!

Whow. Maybe I could. But I don’t want to be the one to blame!

In any case, you could do better, taking into account the photo you posted yesterday..;-)

Germany

Welcome

Glad to see you have a flying family

I have a few hours on a PA-24-180 and it’s one of the nicest planes I’ve flown

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Welcome to EuroGA, UdoR, of course

Now my intentions on what I am looking for are, for example, that I want to get in touch with other pilots, maybe even “flying families”, what I sadly find to be rather rare

On a “normal” year we do two big meet-ups – May and September – and some smaller ones in between. One is still planned for September 2021 to Sicily. I really miss these. It’s been a really hard year for everyone.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
8 Posts
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