As a child, I dreamed of airplanes, but becoming a pilot wasn't even a spark of an idea until 1998. My first job out of college was at a NYC ad agency, which seemed glamorous but wasn't. Honestly, the best part of the job was airline travel. When I was pinned back in my seat on takeoff, all I could think about was, HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?!? I needed to know what was going on in the cockpit. I needed to be pushing the thrust levers forward and getting those engines spooled up. I needed to see out the front window, not the side. Once that happens to you, there is no turning back. You shouldn't ignore that feeling. You should go with it 100%. I took my first "discovery flight" @ Teterboro, NJ (KTEB) in 1999 and by 2000, I was deep into private pilot lessons @ Farmingdale, Long Island (KFRG). This is me the student pilot, running a pre-flight checklist in a Cessna 172.
Becoming a pilot, Part 2
