IN THE COMPANY OF THE GODS
Story and photography
by Eric Anderson

FLYING

If you want control, no sky sport beats flying a light plane. You pay for being in control, of course. The typical hourly rate for dual flying is about $35 for the instructor's air time, plus $100 for a "wet" (full tank of gasoline) Cessna 172. Students are required to have 35 hours' flying time before taking their examination but most students need twice that.

Flight Schools, like American Flyers in San Diego, charge about $6000 for their four week course which, weather permitting, could get an average student a private pilot license from scratch. The advertising pages in any flying magazine list many other instructional schools and their toll free numbers.

A local flying information web page at webpages.cwia.com answers a lot and San Diego Online also has its own aviation section at www.sandiego-online.com
American Flyers is at www.americanflyers.net.

Only you can decide whether to take time from your work to learn to fly in one swoop -- or, as most do, fly a little each weekend over a year's time. One fact that you can't control is weather. Expect to spend some time on the ground even when you live in a southern state. Learn to accept this frustrating situation. If patience is not your virtue, you're in the wrong pastime.

But you've picked the perfect one if you want to see things from a different, exciting perspective like sneaking in sideways to see Mt. Rushmore or sliding in slowly to view Niagara Falls from the brink. This is what private flying is all about: Looking down on Monument Valley or floating like an angel over Maui's House of the Sun. And when you soar over the Biblical lands of Zion and Bryce, you'll be forgiven the conceit that maybe you've joined the company of the gods.

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