WELCOME TO RIVER DAVES PLACE

Private Pilot License Training

Dkahnjob

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How many hours do you squeeze in per year?

If you don't mind my asking, can you run down the avionics installed in the aircraft? With that aircraft and your instrument rating, I'm guessing you get great utility out of it and take some nice trips eastwards.

It looks like your average block time between Van Nuys and Lake Havasu City is about 1:20. That's really nice, it beats sitting in freeway traffic. Heck, it would probably take twice that long to go from Van Nuys to Fontana heading out of town on a Friday afternoon.

Hi, I usually fly around 50 hours a year (used to fly more). I have a GNS530w, KX155, GTX330ES transponder with ADSB out, Garmin Flight Stream 210 blue tooth wireless gateway, S-Tech 50 auto pilot with alt. hold.
I have owned this plane for 28 years and love it as much today as the day I bought it. It is a 1967 C-55 Baron. A true delight to fly and has been very reasonable on maintenance.
I am on my second set of engines since I have owned it.
Dave
 

rrrr

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I have to think owning the aircraft for that long has it in a condition just like a favorite recliner.

Good on you, it's a beauty.
 

DUNEFLYER

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A36F7B5F-9503-4A29-8A94-EDC02FA8AA1B.png
I fly the Barron’s single engine brother the A36, 36 gals of fuel to round trip Havi from Murrieta. Exactly 1hr flight time from wheels up to wheels down. No way to try to say planes are cheap...but time is not cheap either so I have convinced myself that it is so worth it..
 

rrrr

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Wow, another beautiful Beechcraft. I like the tip tank mod and the Hartzell scimitar prop.

Does it have air conditioning? That's a really good option to have here in Texas.
 

Havasteve

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I have my private, single engine high performance. Use to fly newer 172 G1000's and a 182 turbo out of KLGB. I am not current as of right now .
Put something up on the bulletin boards around the airport. Maybe someone is willing to sell a partial.
Got to be in the right position when someone hangs it up. Alot of old timers soon to loose their medical.
 

DUNEFLYER

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No A/C, first 15 mins can be a bit warm but then no problem. 25k to add a/c so that ain’t happening any time soon.
 

Dkahnjob

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No A/C, first 15 mins can be a bit warm but then no problem. 25k to add a/c so that ain’t happening any time soon.

I have to agree with you at $29K for the Baron there is no permanent air conditioning in my future, but there is a very good reasonable alternative.
Bob Stephens in Sedona, AZ has developed a portable A/C system that uses an ice chest and holds 20 pounds of ice and plugs into your cig. lighter.
This is not an evap cooler but acturally chilled water refrigerated A/C. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pspages/bkool13-16043-6.php
I load mine with ice and use it on take off and then shut it off at altitude where you don't need it and save the remaining ice for cooling us down on the let down and landing.
It actually works very well.
 

rrrr

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The Arctic Air Real A/C is a portable compressorized aircraft A/C unit that works really well. It costs less than $5K. They are available in 12 or 24 volt models.

Of course there are the usual dings on your useful load, and routing the condensate drain out the rear fuselage is a bit of a pain, but it's a good alternative to the $25-$30K STC units.

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RAC-200-1-12D-1.jpg


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https://www.arcticaircooler.com/category-s/1477.htm
 

DUNEFLYER

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I have owned one of Bob’s B-Cool units for a while, they do work well but it is kind of a hassle with the ice/draining ect...
I try to fly early mornings or just deal with the heat for the first few minutes. Still have the portable a/c unit just have not used it this summer yet..
 

Devious_Chris

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Great info in this thread. I have been considering getting my private license since moving to havasu.


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grumpy88

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I live in West Hills (actually Canoga Park also, 91304) We must be close by. I am near Roscoe & Valley Circle.
Real close . I'm Roscoe and Farralone . Probably seen each other a couple of times out and about .
 

Havasteve

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Every pilot I know in Havasu that has a plane and hanger was in the right place at the right time. A lot of planes are sold and remain with the hanger. Theres a waiting list for hangers but they dont use that.

It's inevitable that at some point a pilot gets too old and cant pass their physical. They sell their plane and the airport allows the new owner to keep the hanger. Word gets out and someone snatches up a sweet plane and hanger.

Get yourself a friend that flies and hang out at the airport, meet other pilots and offer to pay for gas for a ride. I take people up all the time and seldome ever pay for gas. Its not hard to talk me into going flying.

A trip from Havasu to Bigbear takes one hour and costs me 13 gallons each way or $130 round trip. Thats four people, so about $30 each for a great experience.
 

hallett21

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If you’re renting or in a flying club, is it no big deal to tie the plane up for 3-4 days while you’re at the river, mammoth, etc?


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Sleek-Jet

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If you’re renting or in a flying club, is it no big deal to tie the plane up for 3-4 days while you’re at the river, mammoth, etc?


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Depends really. Some clubs have no minimum hours per day, some like to see usage every day the plane is gone but don't require it. Still others and most FBOs will want a minimum number of hours flown per day and will charge for those hours regardless of the airplane is flown or not.
 

milkmoney

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Can someone fly me from havasu to north Dakota and back ,so I don't have to drive 22 hrs. [emoji106] [emoji202]

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Sleek-Jet

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Wow, another beautiful Beechcraft. I like the tip tank mod and the Hartzell scimitar prop.

Does it have air conditioning? That's a really good option to have here in Texas.

That's why God invented Cessnas, you can open the windows and you are always in the shade
:D

I flew a 414 for a bit that had a Keith AC unit installed, man was it nice. Better than the engine driven AC compressor and you didn't have to turn it off for take-off and landing.
 

rrrr

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A few years ago, I rented a 2007 Cessna 172 a few times that had G1000 avionics and an STC'd air conditioning system. Oh baby, what a beautiful thing in the North Texas summer heat. With just me, another person, and half fuel, it flew nicely. Heck, I left it running all the time. I figured it was no more load on the engine than taking off at MTOW. :D

It was kinda funny to find a Skyhawk with A/C, it's not something one might expect to find, especially in the rental fleet.

I've enjoyed this thread. I knew you flew, but didn't realize how many RDP members were pilots.
 

Dkahnjob

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A few years ago, I rented a 2007 Cessna 172 a few times that had G1000 avionics and an STC'd air conditioning system. Oh baby, what a beautiful thing in the North Texas summer heat. With just me, another person, and half fuel, it flew nicely. Heck, I left it running all the time. I figured it was no more load on the engine than taking off at MTOW. :D

It was kinda funny to find a Skyhawk with A/C, it's not something one might expect to find, especially in the rental fleet.

I've enjoyed this thread. I knew you flew, but didn't realize how many RDP members were pilots.

I always liked flying Skyhawks, but haven't flown anything with a G1000, not sure I would know how to turn it on even!
A/C would be NICE!
 

WillyWonka

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If you want to do this for fun, here is my suggestion;

Get your sport pilot license. It is less time and you don't need to fuck with any medical bullshit. You can always finish up the Private later if you need to. You are limited to one passanger and airspeed in the planes you fly (and a few other limitations), but for bug smashing and hamburger runs it is almost perfect.

Only flying a few hours a month is going to add lots of $$$$ and time to earn a Private Pilot license.


Very limited to what you can fly, when you can fly and who you can with you with the sport license.

Like others have mentioned, it's better to dedicate the time and resources to get it done in a quick amount of time vs dragging it out. It's more difficult to retain the knowledge if you're training is spread out and inconsistent.

Depending on what you fly, it's cheaper to get to the river and back in your plane than your truck. It's also 45 minutes vs 4 hours.

Flying is a lot of fun. Here is a shot I recently took over Canyon Lake. My bucket list is a seaplane rating, river front house with a dock.
 

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If you’re renting or in a flying club, is it no big deal to tie the plane up for 3-4 days while you’re at the river, mammoth, etc?
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It's all about money.

I'm sure there are flying clubs and FBO's that will let you rent the airplane for as long as you want, but there is a cost associated with doing it. One of my local FBO's requires 3 hours a day minimum. Another requires 2 hours.

Availability and cost pushed me into ownership (mostly availability). Usually when it's perfect flying weather, most of the aircraft get booked up early, so if you wanted one for 4 days, you would have to book the plane a month in advance.
 

Sleek-Jet

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Very limited to what you can fly, when you can fly and who you can with you with the sport license.

Like others have mentioned, it's better to dedicate the time and resources to get it done in a quick amount of time vs dragging it out. It's more difficult to retain the knowledge if you're training is spread out and inconsistent.

Depending on what you fly, it's cheaper to get to the river and back in your plane than your truck. It's also 45 minutes vs 4 hours.

Flying is a lot of fun. Here is a shot I recently took over Canyon Lake. My bucket list is a seaplane rating, river front house with a dock.

I figured someone would come along and poopoo Sport Pilot suggestion for being "limited".

Based in what the OP has said, SP is perfect. Gets him flying, cheaper operating costs on less money and time invested. And he can always move along to a Private Pilot license using what he's flown as a SP to count towards the experience requirements.
 
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Standard category airplanes you can fly with a sport pilots license.

  • Piper J-2 and J-3
  • Aeronca Champ
  • Luscombe 8, 8A, 8B, and 8C
  • Taylorcraft BC, BCS, and BC-65
  • Ercoupe 415C and 415 CD
 

Sleek-Jet

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I like the Flight Design CTLS... You can fly it with both doors off and they handle nice. Fun little airplanes that can do a decent job on a cross-country.
 

530RL

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I figured someone would come along and poopoo Sport Pilot suggestion for being "limited".

Based in what the OP has said, SP is perfect. Gets him flying, cheaper operating costs on less money and time invested. And he can always move along to a Private Pilot license using what he's flown as a SP to count towards the experience requirements.


SP is much cheaper to learn the basic skills to aviate, to learn the basic aerodynamic understandings of what control inputs do and why, and to learn all the BS stuff that has nothing to do with actually physically staying in the air, but learning how to navigate, learn airspace, and learn the basics of the communication lingo.

There is nothing in the law that prevents you from learning how to fly in a Honda Jet, but it seems like a pretty good waste of money.

If you are on a budget and want to learn to fly, I still think Sleek-Jet's advice early in this thread to go Sport Pilot was point on.

If you have greater resources when learning to fly and are going to buy a specific aircraft, it is probably best to learn on that aircraft so all your time counts towards getting insurance for you on that aircraft.
 
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rrrr

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I like the Flight Design CTLS... You can fly it with both doors off and they handle nice. Fun little airplanes that can do a decent job on a cross-country.

I like them too. They look like a nice little aircraft.

.

CTLS.jpg
 
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c-172 1979.jpg


This was my setup in my Cessna 172. Basic IFR. I used a yoke mounted Garmin 696 w/ XM weather and radio, and feed it into my Garmin audio panel. Makes flying in and out of Phoenix during our monsoon season more assuring.
 
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Havafewinsider

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Thinking about doing some flying and logging some hours with an instructor. If I remember correctly there is a couple pilots on the board from the Inland Empire area.
Getting licensed is not going to be a speedy process for me, probably only be able to afford a couple hours a month in the air. More for fun at this point while logging some hours and experience in case I decide to get more serious later,

Any Instructor recommendations? I live near Cable and work near Riverside airport. Brackett is not to far away either.

I started my training for my private license in January out of AIA in Chino. Im about 20 hours in and my goal is to eventually buy a plane to fly to Havasu. I'm new and there's a lot of experienced pilots on this form but i will share my experience so far.

1. Go visit a couple of schools and ask around who the good instructors are. Pick the best CFI who you feel fits your personality and learning style. I picked a guy who isnt building hours to go to the airlines because i wanted to learn from someone who truly appreciated teaching and flying not just time in the seat so they can get a regional job. I want to learn to be a good pilot so i can fly my family safely.
2. Chino is a very busy GA airport and its towed so you become familiar working with ATC in fairly busy class C airspace. We routinely go to Ontario to fly the pattern and work with the big aircraft learing about how important seperation and turbulence is in a small plane.
3. Look at a good online ground school. The cockpit is a horrible classroom and ground instruction with your CFI is invaluable but a long process 2 hours a week
4. Budget for me per month is about 800-1000 based on flying and ground instruction but a typical 2hr flight cost me just shy of 300 in a piper warrior
5. Pick differnet times to fly. A morning flight is a lot different than an afternoon flight because of winds. This really showed me how important power management is based on weather. I usually land with a 12-15knt head wind in the afternoon which causes me to stay in the power a little longer. The first time i flew in the moring i was too fast because i was applying the same techniques when i had a head wind.

My first solo is on Thursday and im excited but nervous as well because you can what if yourself to death but im ready so we will see how it goes.
 

zhandfull

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I started my training for my private license in January out of AIA in Chino. Im about 20 hours in and my goal is to eventually buy a plane to fly to Havasu. I'm new and there's a lot of experienced pilots on this form but i will share my experience so far.

1. Go visit a couple of schools and ask around who the good instructors are. Pick the best CFI who you feel fits your personality and learning style. I picked a guy who isnt building hours to go to the airlines because i wanted to learn from someone who truly appreciated teaching and flying not just time in the seat so they can get a regional job. I want to learn to be a good pilot so i can fly my family safely.
2. Chino is a very busy GA airport and its towed so you become familiar working with ATC in fairly busy class C airspace. We routinely go to Ontario to fly the pattern and work with the big aircraft learing about how important seperation and turbulence is in a small plane.
3. Look at a good online ground school. The cockpit is a horrible classroom and ground instruction with your CFI is invaluable but a long process 2 hours a week
4. Budget for me per month is about 800-1000 based on flying and ground instruction but a typical 2hr flight cost me just shy of 300 in a piper warrior
5. Pick differnet times to fly. A morning flight is a lot different than an afternoon flight because of winds. This really showed me how important power management is based on weather. I usually land with a 12-15knt head wind in the afternoon which causes me to stay in the power a little longer. The first time i flew in the moring i was too fast because i was applying the same techniques when i had a head wind.

My first solo is on Thursday and im excited but nervous as well because you can what if yourself to death but im ready so we will see how it goes.

Thats great advice and information thanks for sharing and have fun on that solo.
 
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530RL

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View attachment 664829

This was my setup in in my Cessna 172. Basic IFR. I used a yoke mounted Garmin 696 w/ XM weather and radio, and feed it into my Garmin audio panel. Makes flying in and out of Phoenix during our monsoon season more assuring.


Holy Shit......

Do you have to shovel coal into a boiler to make those steam gauges actually work? :) :) :)
 

rivergames

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I'm really thinking about selling my Chevelle and getting my private pilots license...

Next week, I'm going down to the Hawthorne Airport to meet the instructor.
 

Sleek-Jet

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I'd take the Fairchild 24 over everything else any day, and twice in Sunday...

... Well, except for the Gulfstream.
 
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Holy Shit......

Do you have to shovel coal into a boiler to make those steam gauges actually work? :) :) :)

They always worked. Also had one EGT to work with on those long cross country flights.

The RV-7a took a different approach, and chose a glass panel, and all four pipes have EGT's.
 
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Havasteve

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I started my training for my private license in January out of AIA in Chino. Im about 20 hours in and my goal is to eventually buy a plane to fly to Havasu. I'm new and there's a lot of experienced pilots on this form but i will share my experience so far.

1. Go visit a couple of schools and ask around who the good instructors are. Pick the best CFI who you feel fits your personality and learning style. I picked a guy who isnt building hours to go to the airlines because i wanted to learn from someone who truly appreciated teaching and flying not just time in the seat so they can get a regional job. I want to learn to be a good pilot so i can fly my family safely.
2. Chino is a very busy GA airport and its towed so you become familiar working with ATC in fairly busy class C airspace. We routinely go to Ontario to fly the pattern and work with the big aircraft learing about how important seperation and turbulence is in a small plane.
3. Look at a good online ground school. The cockpit is a horrible classroom and ground instruction with your CFI is invaluable but a long process 2 hours a week
4. Budget for me per month is about 800-1000 based on flying and ground instruction but a typical 2hr flight cost me just shy of 300 in a piper warrior
5. Pick differnet times to fly. A morning flight is a lot different than an afternoon flight because of winds. This really showed me how important power management is based on weather. I usually land with a 12-15knt head wind in the afternoon which causes me to stay in the power a little longer. The first time i flew in the moring i was too fast because i was applying the same techniques when i had a head wind.

My first solo is on Thursday and im excited but nervous as well because you can what if yourself to death but im ready so we will see how it goes.

Congrats on the upcoming solo.

Just remember to bring an extra shirt. Trust me!
 

rrrr

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That looks like a 2FF post, the same photos over and over... :D
 

Paul65k

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Flying is certainly addicting!!!

We owned 5 different airplanes over a 30 year period and used them all primarily to commute back and forth from OC to Havasu.

Our place on the CA side has an 1800' dirt strip (one way regardless of wind direction) but I could get from SNA to HII (Palms) in somewhere between 1:35 - 1:10 depending on the airplane.

Through the years we owned:
  • Cardinal RG
  • Beech Bonanza A36
  • Piper Saratoga (non-turbo)
  • Beech Baron B55
  • Cessna 303 Crusader
They all had their pluses and Minuses and served us well throughout our flying adventures.....our favorite plane was probably the last one as it was incredibly roomy, had a HUGE cargo door as well as Air Stair door and was probably the most docile twin I ever flew......not the fastest but steady as a rock.
Left Front - New.JPG
In Flight Right Turn - New_edited.JPG
Left Side - New.JPG


The biggest reason I flew for the last 10 years of so was because time was my most precious commodity......as we've slowed down and moved to Havasu full time I'm just not in such a hurry anymore and we sold the Crusader.

Now have the best of all worlds as a friend of mine keeps a Piper turbo arrow (his second plane) in his hangar in Havasu and asks me to fly it from time to time......which I do but when we go places now we drive......weird huh??

Anyhow flying was and still is one of the great joys of my life and I wouldn't trade any of it if I was doing it over again!!!
 

hallett21

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Flying is certainly addicting!!!

We owned 5 different airplanes over a 30 year period and used them all primarily to commute back and forth from OC to Havasu.

Our place on the CA side has an 1800' dirt strip (one way regardless of wind direction) but I could get from SNA to HII (Palms) in somewhere between 1:35 - 1:10 depending on the airplane.

Through the years we owned:
  • Cardinal RG
  • Beech Bonanza A36
  • Piper Saratoga (non-turbo)
  • Beech Baron B55
  • Cessna 303 Crusader
They all had their pluses and Minuses and served us well throughout our flying adventures.....our favorite plane was probably the last one as it was incredibly roomy, had a HUGE cargo door as well as Air Stair door and was probably the most docile twin I ever flew......not the fastest but steady as a rock. View attachment 665110 View attachment 665111 View attachment 665112

The biggest reason I flew for the last 10 years of so was because time was my most precious commodity......as we've slowed down and moved to Havasu full time I'm just not in such a hurry anymore and we sold the Crusader.

Now have the best of all worlds as a friend of mine keeps a Piper turbo arrow (his second plane) in his hangar in Havasu and asks me to fly it from time to time......which I do but when we go places now we drive......weird huh??

Anyhow flying was and still is one of the great joys of my life and I wouldn't trade any of it if I was doing it over again!!!

What's that gonna set me back?



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