Hi everyone,
I've been lurking around this site for a little while now so it's time to introduce myself and see if I can gain your insights into some of the queries I have before I plunge head first into recreational flying.
I am aged in my late 50's (time flies!!) and have been retired for a couple of years. While I have always been intrigued about aviation, and have done a ridiculous amount of business travel in the big birds (most of the time having dozed off before the doors were closed), I have never taken the prospect of learning to fly too seriously....until now. Went on a small group flying holiday to the top end last year and had the chance to sit with the pilot (and steer a bit under instruction) and I was hooked. I'm about to go off to Africa for a similar trip shortly and am seriously considering taking the plunge with TIF and lessons when I get back.
All that said, I do have some questions and would value input from those experienced in the world of recreational aviation.
I live in the S/E suburbs of Melbourne and therefore have a few reasonably local flight schools & airfields handy - Tooraddin, Lilydale, Coldstream and Tyabb are the closest, but Barwon Heads is also a possibility as I have a holiday house down that way). The question obviously then is which one do I go to? Presumably the sensible answer would be to visit each, talk with the instructors and take it from there.
However, my personality is such that when I take something on, I'm afraid I have to go whole hog. I can well see myself doing the training (full time), hopefully becoming fully licensed (RAA) and then wanting to buy an aircraft rather than rent (I have been watching the posts on the Morgan Sierra's with particular interest). Therefore, should my choice of training location be dictated to some extent by where I am likely to want to fly from into the future? If so, should I then consider the likelihood of being able to obtain hangarage for a future aircraft before I start my training? The next question in this series is then ... how difficult is it to obtain hangarage at the sorts of airfields i mentioned above? (I certainly wouldn't want to acquire an aircraft and then leave my investment unhangared)?
Sorry this is so long winded but any advice would be much appreciated. In any event I hope to become a flying member of this fraternity shortly.
Cheers,
Jeff