An Aspiring Pilot's Journal

An Aspiring Pilot's Journal!

I have always been fascinated by airplanes. The idea of flying high up in the sky, traveling to different places, and experiencing new cultures has always excited me. I have dreamt of becoming a pilot since I was a child, and now, I am finally taking the first steps towards making that dream a reality. Just to be clear, I am and enjoy being a Software Engineer. My pursuit of becoming a pilot is not as a career replacement. It's to be able to fly recreationally and to experience the joy of flying.

Background?

As I have a full time job in Software Engineering, I have to balance my time between work, and my pilot training. And realistically, as of now, I don't have the funds either to pursue this dream right away. So, I am taking it slow, and steady.

Plan

Ideally, I'll try to journal every Sunday. Documenting my journey as I make progress in bits and pieces. Will be taking this journey in steps. Phases if you will.

  1. The kiddish dreamy phase
  2. The studying phase
  3. The flying phase

The kiddish dreamy phase

This is where I am right now. I have very little time and lots of passion. I am reading about airplanes, watching videos, and flight simulation. I own a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick and a copy of X-Plane 11. I've already set up the simulator on my laptop and played around a little bit. It's fun!

I know it's just a game, I'm not using it for learning purposes at all. I want to get more nerdy. Yes. That's the goal. Get deep into the theory, the "procedures" that these help with.

As part of this phase, I'll focus deeply on Flight Sim Enthusiast stuff:

  • Learning about the basics of flying/aviation concepts
  • Learning GA flying (with a nice focus on Realism too)
  • Setting up VATSIM and practice GA flying online
  • Picking one between Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 and start learning about it.
  • Then fly this aircraft seriously on VATSIM.

There's roughly two kinds of people in the Flight Sim community. The ones who just want to fly and have fun, these focus too much on computers, and autopilot, and maybe where what buttons are.

The other is who while learning the same things as the previous kind, also focus on the real-world procedures, and the real-world way of flying. I want to be the latter. I will be focusing on the theory as well. Understanding each aircraft I pick closely before I move on from it to the next one.

2024-07-01 - Ooh fancy! Beginning the flight sim journey

To be continued...