XNachoX, congrats! Must be amazing to be flying on your own. To me it seems too dangerous - so many moving parts, so many things that can go wrong. Heavy sidewinds during landing, engine failure, problems during takeoff - I am not comfortable in a plane until it passes around 500 metres of altitude. I still dream of learning how to fly in a plane though, so good job there by you to get where you are. Pretty soon you
ll be flying in formation with Toad and Frenchy and the rest
As soon as you get enough flight hours (500 in Denmark I think), you should consider getting a wee bit of training so you can drop skydivers.
Have talked to some of our pilots and they say that it's hands down the best way to get cheap or free air time. True, there isn't much navigation to do but it's FREE. Even a small C-182 costs a lot to operate and if you're not a rich person it's a good alternative.
And you get ****eloads of takeoffs/landings. 20 lifts per day is far from unusual. You can accumulate hours rather rapidly at little financial cost and can then move on to bigger planes and stuff.
The downside is that you need to make a commitment to the DZ. Not every weekend mind you but you might be called upon when other pilots aren't available.
An added bonus of dropping skydivers is that you get to do cowboy take offs (lift gear just above the tarmac, go straight to build speed, then go near vertical
) and low passes. Oh and of course skydivers appreciate zero g exits, so you'll probably get to do those too. Talk to Duckwing6 if he's still in AH - I believe he flies a Skyvan *drool* somewhere in Europe. A sexy one at that.
Definitely the way to go if you want flight hours. If you're lucky there's a DZ that operates twin engine turbine planes - and that'll save you lots of moneys if you get to fly 'em.
