The First Thousand Hours

Life is full of little transitions and milestones. Back in 1995, when I got
my ticket, I privately vowed that I would fly 1000 hours in the next ten
years.

At the time, this seemed wildly optimistic. I had a house, two little kids
underfoot, a wife who had just gone to working part-time in order to be home
with the kids, a middle-level management job at my hometown newspaper, and
very little discretionary income.

Nevertheless, I had waited my whole life to learn to fly, so I flew as often
as I could, even selling my plasma to raise funds for aircraft rental.
Relatives knew that the *only* thing I wanted for birthdays and Christmas
was "flight-time-money"...

It's been an interesting decade. Last week, while en route to visit
Montblack for Turkey Day up in frozen Minnesota, the clock ticked off that
thousandth flying hour. And although it actually took 10 years and 9 months
to achieve, I have a great excuse -- my wife, Mary learned to fly in the
interim, and I have had to share flight time equally with her ever since!
Heck, if we added in *her* PIC hours, we're actually approaching 1600 hours
now...

I sat down with my log books and transcribed them into an Excel spreadsheet,
allowing me to extract the following mildly interesting data:

- 1000 hours is the equivalent of 25 full work weeks in the air
- In 3,932 days (from Private to 1000th hour), I made 1181 flights,
averaging one every 3.3 days
- 1502 landings without breaking anything
- Number of landings noted as "perfect": 13
- Number of landings before achieving "perfect": 371
- 19 different aircraft types flown (Top two: 437 flights in the Pathfinder;
404 in the Warrior)
- 190 different airports in 25 states (Top 3: Iowa, 47 different airports;
Wisconsin: 41 airports; Illinois: 26 airports)
- 113 different passengers (other than Mary and the kids)
- Highest wind noted during landing: 62 knots
- Highest headwind noted: 70 knots
- Average flight time: 0.85 hour per flight
- Longest flight: 5.4 hours (Reno, NV -to- Scott's Bluff, NE)
- Most unusual plane flown: Lockheed Constellation...
- Most fun plane flown: 1942 Stearman...
- Most fun flight: Aerobatics in a Decathlon...
- Most memorable flight: Into Dulles International, in Washington, DC, to be
an exhibit at the Smithsonian...
- Most beautiful flight: 1.5 hours over the Grand Canyon...
- Best use for aviation: 31 flights to Wisconsin to see my Mom during her
last year...
- Dumbest thing I've done in a plane: Flying without flotation gear straight
across Lake Michigan with my toddler son (and a flight instructor) in a
clapped out old Mooney at 3000 MSL...
- Most poignant flight: Flying into Meigs shortly after 9/11...what a
bittersweet memory!
- Money spent on flying: I don't want to think about it.... :-0

Flying has been -- and continues to be -- a wonderful, magical, spiritual
experience for me, and I've been very lucky to have achieved (what I thought
was) an unattainable goal. During this past decade, I've seen some
remarkable changes take place in aviation.

- When I learned to fly, GPS was still basically a dream -- now, we sport
*two* color units in our aircraft...
- The World War II guys, once the main-stay of our airports, are just about
gone now...
- ADF has virtually disappeared from general aviation planes...
- Glass cockpits were science fiction in '95 -- now they are becoming the
norm...
- Women pilots, once incredibly rare, are now only "rare"...

It's been my privilege and honor to share the skies with you gentlemen and
women, and I look forward to spending another decade of safe, accident-free,
aviating with you all!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,
Congratulations!
I remember when I hit my first thousand hour. I shutdown at Spirit of
St. Louis looked at my Hobbs and had a big smile on my face. I was on my
way home from a tour of the Continental US.
Michelle

In article ajMjf.372824$084.192879@attbi_s22,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

- 1000 hours is the equivalent of 25 full work weeks in the air

maybe your work week is equivalent but sure not mine. :-(

congrats.

--
Bob Noel
New NHL? what a joke

Jay that was a really nice post, Thank you for sharing.

Bush

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 00:11:50 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Life is full of little transitions and milestones. Back in 1995, when I got
my ticket, I privately vowed that I would fly 1000 hours in the next ten
years.

At the time, this seemed wildly optimistic. I had a house, two little kids
underfoot, a wife who had just gone to working part-time in order to be home
with the kids, a middle-level management job at my hometown newspaper, and
very little discretionary income.

Nevertheless, I had waited my whole life to learn to fly, so I flew as often
as I could, even selling my plasma to raise funds for aircraft rental.
Relatives knew that the *only* thing I wanted for birthdays and Christmas
was "flight-time-money"...

It's been an interesting decade. Last week, while en route to visit
Montblack for Turkey Day up in frozen Minnesota, the clock ticked off that
thousandth flying hour. And although it actually took 10 years and 9 months
to achieve, I have a great excuse -- my wife, Mary learned to fly in the
interim, and I have had to share flight time equally with her ever since!
Heck, if we added in *her* PIC hours, we're actually approaching 1600 hours
now...

I sat down with my log books and transcribed them into an Excel spreadsheet,
allowing me to extract the following mildly interesting data:

- 1000 hours is the equivalent of 25 full work weeks in the air
- In 3,932 days (from Private to 1000th hour), I made 1181 flights,
averaging one every 3.3 days
- 1502 landings without breaking anything
- Number of landings noted as "perfect": 13
- Number of landings before achieving "perfect": 371
- 19 different aircraft types flown (Top two: 437 flights in the Pathfinder;
404 in the Warrior)
- 190 different airports in 25 states (Top 3: Iowa, 47 different airports;
Wisconsin: 41 airports; Illinois: 26 airports)
- 113 different passengers (other than Mary and the kids)
- Highest wind noted during landing: 62 knots
- Highest headwind noted: 70 knots
- Average flight time: 0.85 hour per flight
- Longest flight: 5.4 hours (Reno, NV -to- Scott's Bluff, NE)
- Most unusual plane flown: Lockheed Constellation...
- Most fun plane flown: 1942 Stearman...
- Most fun flight: Aerobatics in a Decathlon...
- Most memorable flight: Into Dulles International, in Washington, DC, to be
an exhibit at the Smithsonian...
- Most beautiful flight: 1.5 hours over the Grand Canyon...
- Best use for aviation: 31 flights to Wisconsin to see my Mom during her
last year...
- Dumbest thing I've done in a plane: Flying without flotation gear straight
across Lake Michigan with my toddler son (and a flight instructor) in a
clapped out old Mooney at 3000 MSL...
- Most poignant flight: Flying into Meigs shortly after 9/11...what a
bittersweet memory!
- Money spent on flying: I don't want to think about it.... :-0

Flying has been -- and continues to be -- a wonderful, magical, spiritual
experience for me, and I've been very lucky to have achieved (what I thought
was) an unattainable goal. During this past decade, I've seen some
remarkable changes take place in aviation.

- When I learned to fly, GPS was still basically a dream -- now, we sport
*two* color units in our aircraft...
- The World War II guys, once the main-stay of our airports, are just about
gone now...
- ADF has virtually disappeared from general aviation planes...
- Glass cockpits were science fiction in '95 -- now they are becoming the
norm...
- Women pilots, once incredibly rare, are now only "rare"...

It's been my privilege and honor to share the skies with you gentlemen and
women, and I look forward to spending another decade of safe, accident-free,
aviating with you all!

Nice post, Jay. As a beginner with only a year and a half of PPSEL
experience, it is fun to hear about others with more time.

- Most memorable flight: Into Dulles International, in Washington, DC, to
be an exhibit at the Smithsonian...

I never suspected that you are old enough to be an exhibit at the
Smithsonian!

tom pettit

Jay, that really is an achievement! Few people flying only for fun can
hit 100+ hours a year... and I personally think that time flying with
one's spouse should count as PIC for both pilots! Doesn't get any
better than that.

Jay Honeck wrote:
Life is full of little transitions and milestones. Back in 1995, when I got
my ticket, I privately vowed that I would fly 1000 hours in the next ten
years.

At the time, this seemed wildly optimistic. I had a house, two little kids
underfoot, a wife who had just gone to working part-time in order to be home
with the kids, a middle-level management job at my hometown newspaper, and
very little discretionary income.

Nevertheless, I had waited my whole life to learn to fly, so I flew as often
as I could, even selling my plasma to raise funds for aircraft rental.
Relatives knew that the *only* thing I wanted for birthdays and Christmas
was "flight-time-money"...

It's been an interesting decade. Last week, while en route to visit
Montblack for Turkey Day up in frozen Minnesota, the clock ticked off that
thousandth flying hour. And although it actually took 10 years and 9 months
to achieve, I have a great excuse -- my wife, Mary learned to fly in the
interim, and I have had to share flight time equally with her ever since!
Heck, if we added in *her* PIC hours, we're actually approaching 1600 hours
now...

I sat down with my log books and transcribed them into an Excel spreadsheet,
allowing me to extract the following mildly interesting data:

- 1000 hours is the equivalent of 25 full work weeks in the air
- In 3,932 days (from Private to 1000th hour), I made 1181 flights,
averaging one every 3.3 days
- 1502 landings without breaking anything
- Number of landings noted as "perfect": 13
- Number of landings before achieving "perfect": 371
- 19 different aircraft types flown (Top two: 437 flights in the Pathfinder;
404 in the Warrior)
- 190 different airports in 25 states (Top 3: Iowa, 47 different airports;
Wisconsin: 41 airports; Illinois: 26 airports)
- 113 different passengers (other than Mary and the kids)
- Highest wind noted during landing: 62 knots
- Highest headwind noted: 70 knots
- Average flight time: 0.85 hour per flight
- Longest flight: 5.4 hours (Reno, NV -to- Scott's Bluff, NE)
- Most unusual plane flown: Lockheed Constellation...
- Most fun plane flown: 1942 Stearman...
- Most fun flight: Aerobatics in a Decathlon...
- Most memorable flight: Into Dulles International, in Washington, DC, to be
an exhibit at the Smithsonian...
- Most beautiful flight: 1.5 hours over the Grand Canyon...
- Best use for aviation: 31 flights to Wisconsin to see my Mom during her
last year...
- Dumbest thing I've done in a plane: Flying without flotation gear straight
across Lake Michigan with my toddler son (and a flight instructor) in a
clapped out old Mooney at 3000 MSL...
- Most poignant flight: Flying into Meigs shortly after 9/11...what a
bittersweet memory!
- Money spent on flying: I don't want to think about it.... :-0

Flying has been -- and continues to be -- a wonderful, magical, spiritual
experience for me, and I've been very lucky to have achieved (what I thought
was) an unattainable goal. During this past decade, I've seen some
remarkable changes take place in aviation.

- When I learned to fly, GPS was still basically a dream -- now, we sport
*two* color units in our aircraft...
- The World War II guys, once the main-stay of our airports, are just about
gone now...
- ADF has virtually disappeared from general aviation planes...
- Glass cockpits were science fiction in '95 -- now they are becoming the
norm...
- Women pilots, once incredibly rare, are now only "rare"...

It's been my privilege and honor to share the skies with you gentlemen and
women, and I look forward to spending another decade of safe, accident-free,
aviating with you all!

Congrats on the big 1000 hour milestone!... just a thought, but have
you ever thought maybe about now pursuing getting a CFI ticket to help
pass on your flying knowledge and experience to others on a casual
basis?

Now that I've finally passed the 500 hour mark myself, the oldtimer
CFIs around my airport have been pestering me on to get my commercial,
instrument and CFI tickets. The two main ones are getting old in years
and intend to let their medicals lapse someday to do the sport pilot
thing for the remainder of their flying days. I don't know if I have
the "right stuff" to be a CFI or not, and have no real desire or time
to become a regular primary instructor, but could probably handle the
occasional student such as the children of fellow private pilots who've
actually been already flying all their lives with their dads but just
need to get that "official" on-paper training for their checkrides when
they reach their 17th birthday, and to perform BFRs for my fellow
pilots, and other CFI things of that sort, since my local airport is
really like more of a big flying club with a close-knit community of
fellow aviators than it is a "normal" airport. It would be a neat way
to contribute something back to that community, but I'm still somewhat
skittish in the idea of accepting all the extra responsibility.

- Most memorable flight: Into Dulles International, in Washington, DC, to
be an exhibit at the Smithsonian...

I never suspected that you are old enough to be an exhibit at the
Smithsonian!

Hey, my kids think I'm a fossil!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Congrats on the big 1000 hour milestone!... just a thought, but have
you ever thought maybe about now pursuing getting a CFI ticket to help
pass on your flying knowledge and experience to others on a casual
basis?

Getting my CFI has always been in the back of my head...but I don't have
time to turn around, lately...

Someday...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
And although it actually took 10 years and 9 months to achieve

You got your ticket in '95, '05 is not over yet. You can rename your
goal to 1000hrs in ten years (AFTER you got your license).

Anyways, Big congrats on the 1000hr mark. Truely a great achievement
(although some would say "been there, done that", they didn't do it
while raising kids, keeping the mrs happy, running your own business
and keeping household obligations intact). Congrats again my friend.