From: jle@fc.hp.com
 (Jer/ Eberhard)
Subject: Re: Beginner needs advice...badly!
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:45:25 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.1 PL6]

Steve Pennypacker (spenny@sw.stratus.com) wrote:
: In article <122140255@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM>, jle@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Jer/ Eberhard) writes:
: > >  I've never heard of anyone doing it in 40 hours.

: > Now you have!  Private Pilot, ASEL, Part 141, 37.2 hours.

: > Jer/ Eberhard, (SLASH), HAM = N0FZD | Hewlett-Packard - MS99, 1UP10,15'East

: What aviation experience did you have before starting on your private,
: if any?

No real experience.

I had previously seen airplanes at the airport.

I could spell airplane.

I had never ridden on an airliner.

For my 7th birthday, I was given a 30 minute ride in a Piper Tri-pacer in
the right rear seat, on my father's lap.

: Any other unique circumstances, such as simpler regulations at the time?

TCAs were new and I learned at a controlled airport.  This was probably
more of a concern to my instructors than to me.

Nothing unique, other than I had just graduated from college with a BA
in Mathematics/Physics/Chemistry.  That was June of 1974.  In September
I enrolled in the Jeppesen-Sanderson "programmed" ground school at the
local Cessna FBO, earning my private 6 months later.  It was a
self-paced individual course with an hour of groundschool "flight prep",
with film strips, an audio cassette, a text book and a workbook.  My
first instructor told me that I could get my ticket in 36 hours, if I
always studied at least 3 "flight preps" ahead of where we were flying,
so that when we did something that I could do straight-off, we could
just proceed on to the next lesson.  So, I studied dilligently and asked
questions about everything that I had read that I didn't intimately
understand from the flight prep before we went to the airplane.  I
organized myself and the airplane so that when I started the engine
(hobbs meter), I was ready to roll to the nearest takeoff runway, runup
and fly off to the practice are.

I thought, I planned, I executed.

When I had 36 hours, I had been thru all the phase checks, written exams
and we were doing the final sign-off.  When we added up the kind of
hours I had, I lacked 1.2 of cross-country, so I was signed off
immediatly for a solo cross country, came back, was signed off for the
private checkride and passed it the next day in Cheyenne winds of 25G30,
a calm day in CYS.  :-)

During my XC training, I stated that I wanted to be competent and
qualified to fly thru the Denver TCA when I got my license, so part of
my dual XC was TCA introduction and communications.  No problem.  A week
after I got my license, I picked up a friend at DEN...  all on my own...
no problem.

: I'm very curious, as this sounds pretty incredible.

:      Steve Pennypacker		     PP-ASEL

I maintain that a person can do what they prescribe, in the way
it is prescribed and do it in a minimal time.

It was easy...  I had just graduated from college and I treated this as
just another college course.  Do what is expected, do outside reading,
think, practice the workbook exercises, ask questions.  Check progress
against the plan and work on discrepencies.

It wasn't hard, but I had to keep focused.  I did and it worked.

During my private training, I had 5 different CFIs, as they would get
their hours up and then move on to the airlines.  I didn't see this as a
problem...  in fact, I saw this as a benefit, as I got several different
points of view early on and determined that there were often several
different ways of accomplishing the tasks.

Jer/ (Slash) Eberhard, jle@fc.hp.com, Jer_Eberhard@fc.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard UDL, 3404 East Harmony Road MS-99, Ft Collins, CO  80525-9599
Phone 303 229-2861, FAX 303 229-2838, 1UP10, Incoming 40 44.1N+105 33.0W
Civil Air Patrol, Pikes Peak 218, MSN Check Pilot, CFI Airplane & Glider, N0FZD