A Passion For Flight

In 1993, I began a journey into the air. Torrance airport (TOA) lay only a mile from my office and I was drawn to the activity there. I think most kids dream of learning to fly and I was no different, although my early interest was for motorless flight in sailplanes. But my friendship with Doug McCommins was the factor that tipped the scales from dreams to reality. An ex-professional pilot and flight instructor, Doug's enthusiasm infected me. After flying several day trips with our wives to interesting places, I was hooked and began taking lessons at Torrance. I was motivated to complete quickly, since our first child was on his way and I knew that completing my training after his arrival would be infinitely harder than prior to it. As it turned out, I just squeaked by, taking my check-ride and receiving my private pilot certificate just 4 days before Kieran was born!

What followed was several years in which I flew only sporadically, renting aircraft and struggling, like other suburbanites with a pilots license, to keep my skills current. Luckily my wife loves to fly - and this makes all the difference! (I always ask would-be pilots if their family supports their interest in flying. If not, I caution them that it's very hard - nigh impossible - to successfully integrate such a large commitment of time and money into their lives.) Our son, Kieran, flew with us when he was just three weeks old to visit my godfather. We've been flying together ever since.

But the technology boom of the late 1990's was good to me and I found myself - quite unexpectedly - with the resources to actually purchase my own airplane! All pilots dream of ownership and I was no exception, but I never imagined I would be able to for many years. Little did I know what an amazing journey I was about to embark upon! I knew right away what type of plane I wanted - a Cessna 182. It would be familiar, since I was flying 172s at the time, reasonably simple to fly and inexpensive to operate, reliable, faster and able to carry a lot more weight than the 172. For me and my family, it's the perfect balance of cost and utility. After 5 years of ownership, I'm still very happy with that decision.

My second piece of good luck was finding N21508. It's a 1973 Cessna 182P with very few flight hours for it's age. It already had a nice King radio stack and new leather interior when I happened upon it. Everything else I looked at made N21508 look better and better! Fortunately, other potential buyers wavered and I was able to close a good deal.

I've made a number of minor upgrades (e.g. strobes, new fuel bladders, enginer analyser, dashboard brow, etc.) but the plane was already well-equipped. Now that I had an IFR-capable aircraft, the obvious next step was the instrument rating. What a difference that has made! Not only has the rating raised the utility of my flying, I've become a much more capable and confident pilot. I discovered that the 182 is an excellent plane for IFR flight and the opportunity to obtain the rating in my own plane really improved my understanding of its nuances. When I flew with Doug recently (my instrument instructor!) he noticed that I can intuitively "feel" what the plane is doing and make adjustments without thinking about it. Once he brought this to my attention, I realized that he was right. It's just another great benefit of owning and regularly flying the same aircraft.

As I said before, my family's enjoyment of flying makes all the difference! It has become an integral part of the way we spend our leasure time. More often than not, we vacation places we can reach easily in N21508. In the past 5 years, we've explored portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Oregon and Washington, in addition to lots of flying throughout California. We've visited places we would never have visited by car and seen so much we want to return to again.

Through it all, I continue to marvel at my good fortune. Even now, I sometimes find myself giddy with pleasure, humming along at 130 knots over some beautiful stretch of countryside, the headphones playing familiar tunes and my family riding along enjoying it all with me. Yep, I'm a very lucky man, indeed!