9/16/17 I Want A Plane?

    First of all, shut it you small town plebeians.  I know right at this moment it is not going to happen.  A couple of things need to line up.  Boy has to finish school, Wife has to come back to town, we need to pay off Wife's student loans and discuss if she might benefit from getting one more degree, as DJ Khaled likes to say in all his songs "Another One!!"
    Back to Earth, I was talking to my trainer in the chemistry department and she was saying her ex husband got them into flying.  They started with a very old 70's model plane that they bought for like $10,000.  Eventually, they moved into a plane big enough for the five of them to travel around the country.  Just hearing her talk makes me dream of having that kind of freedom.  With that kind of freedom, Wife would get season passes to Disney so we could see the parks dressed for the various holidays, for one.  I would love to be able to fly into Key West or some island area like that for a weekend, be back in time for work and not skip a beat.  Maybe head in the opposite direction and go to Vegas to catch some shows or a fancy dinner.
    Anyways, she was saying they were flying so often, she ended up getting her VFR pilot's license.  VFR simply means Visual Flight Rules and that means she could only fly the plane under the clouds, normally around and up to 12,000 feet.  To drive in the clouds where visibility is sketchy, one must be instrument certified, to rely on the different instruments to help you see.  She said if I was interested I would need 40 hours of flight training with a certified pilot, there are a couple schools here in Austin and even some in San Marcos.  I would also have to either buy a plane or pay the rental fees and all that can start to add up.  I looked just randomly through a plane selling thing like Autotrader but for planes and there was a newish plane for $139.000, over 20 years it was about $500 a month.  Twenty years is a long time, but $500 is about what we pay for Boy's car and I never get to use it.
    I have a dream that Boy might be interested in pursuing this and maybe if we find a friend of his or even an outsider, we can buy an even bigger plane for $400,000 split 3 or 4 ways, that would be really nice.  I know some of you are poo pooing all over this blog, but I dare to dream the impossible dream.  To the winners in life, go the spoils.  Wife still says she won't ride in a plane, so maybe I am just fantasizing.