Got to fly a Rans Venterra (a homebuilt) over the weekend. Thought I was just getting a ride, but the pilot/owner let me have the controls for about 15 minutes. Now I want a license and an airplane. My oldest son got about a minute of stick time in a Piper Apache. He wants a license and me to have an airplane as well. I'm thinking when he gets to high school in about 4 years, we may do training together.

I went through ground school and logged a few hours of stick time, mostly out of boredom, when i was on active duty overseas.

Cost wasn't terrible at the base Aero clubs. I mostly lost interest because I ended up spending several years in South Korea, where flying a private plane was just a little too interesting. I almost picked it back up when I was stationed in Alaska, but never did.

Why Ike, whatever do you mean?

Eh?

It's incredibly expensive. My wife and I never finished, but made good progress. I'm sure we need to start over now.

You don't need a plane, you could always join a club that owns a couple.

Gary Powers reference?

Well, by interesting, I mean frightening and intimidating. The Aero Club there flies out of Osan Air Base, which means you are sharing taxi ramps, runways, and in some cases, air space with U2's, F-16's, C-17, C-5, C-141's, etc...

There is very littleair space in South Korea that is usable for private pilots, and there are very few privately owned aircraft flying around.

The pre-flight briefings at the Aero club highlight several areas that are heavily protected by anti-aircraft weapons manned by South Korean military, whose orders are to shoot first, ask questions later, if any aircraft enter that air space.

The usable air space around Osan Air Base for private aircraft is basically, take off, fly in a very narrow corridor away from the base to the South East, fly in a circle until you've become bored of it, then fly back in that same narrow corridor and land...

The first time I taxi'd out to the runway, I was immediately behind a C-5 Galaxy, and was followed immediately by a flight of four F-16's taking off in formation. I was in a Cessna 152 at the time.

Needless to say, it was extremely nerve wracking, and not exactly an enjoyable experience for a first time at the controls of an airplane.