I got into flying sort of by accident. I was working at Pitney Bowes in Stamford CT and hanging out with a few of my buddies after work at the Hangar One Café at Danbury Airport drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. It was late afternoon/early evening and we were sitting in one of the booths overlooking the runway with the lights coming on. My friend Bobby and I were watching as a brand new Piper Warrior taxied in to the ramp and parked outside the door of the restaurant. A thirty something guy and this hot girl get out of the plane. He jumped the fence and a few minutes later pulled up to the Warrior with a Saab Turbo SPG. They unloaded the airplane into the car and then sped off together. I thought as did Bobby ‘I want to be just like that guy’ and one of us mentioned it to the other.
Dares were made and we went downstairs to the flight school and scheduled intro flights for the next day which was conveniently Saturday. I flew with Greg who informed me that he would not be my instructor because he was leaving to go work for a commuter airline. We did typical stuff you do on an intro ride the instructor takes off and then lets the student fly around. I wasn’t sure I liked it but I bought the $50 Jeppensen private pilot kit which had all sorts of cryptic stuff in it like a plotter, a flight computer, a logbook, a few textbooks and cross country navigation logs. It came in a little leatherette bag.
My first logbook entry was on 10/16/1985 a half hour in Cessna 94784 a 1983 Cessna 152 (which is still working as a trainer @ DXR)
I started flight training that next week and embarked on a journey that’s still going on today.
