Hobu, Inc.

My interest in flying came from exposure to my neighbor’s radio-controlled model flying and working as a line boy filling the local cropduster up with chemicals and fuel. I had an interest in taking lessons near the end of high school, but I didn’t have the resources to undertake the effort. I wasn’t looking toward being a career aviator, which made going in debt to obtain a license impractical. This past year I decided I had the resources to do the training, and after a discovery ride at Hap’s Air Service in Ames, I was hooked.

I completed my ticket (pilot-speak for a license) in the venerable Cessna 172, which is a mainstay of general aviation. Not too fast, not too slow, enough hauling capacity for pasty computer geeks, and docile and forgiving in the air, it makes for an excellent training aircraft. Actual operation of the aircraft is more akin to operating heavy machinery than driving a car, and one of the most challenging aspects of learning to fly comes up very early in training — landing. After getting over the landing hump, I solo’d, and it was then on to doing cross-country flights and building up my experience in preparation for my practical test.

For me, the most enjoyable part of flying is going on cross-country flights. Cross-country flying is defined as flying more than 50 nautical miles, and it doesn’t usually entail going from New York to Los Angeles During training, navigation is usually done through raw pilotage or radio navigation — no fancy GPS. Pilotage involves taking a map and figuring out where you are and where you are going The perfect task for a map geek smashing bugs at 100 mph one mile up …