About The Author

My name is Edward, friends call me Eddie, and in business, I go by Ed. I've been called a few other things that I won't repeat for they either will cause me great embarrassment or will flood my inbox with requests for dates. I was born and raised in Michigan where I have lived all of my 31 years. I am currently between relationships, somewhat in the same manner the Gobi desert is between floods. I spent six years in the engineering field working on die press design and drawings, along with structural detailing for the steel endoskeletons of buildings. After a few years of persistence I was finally coerced into going to work for my father. So for the past eight years I have been in the electronics industry involved in distribution and representation of electronic supplies and equipment. Being a small family business, I wear a lot of hats, and basically do a little bit of everything in the business, and a lot of a few things. I reside in a modest house on the western side of the lower peninsula of Michigan, and I have a few interests which include motorcycling, camping, fishing, golfing, football, travel, martial arts, and most recently flying.

My association with aviation goes back to my elementary school days when my dad flew RC airplanes. I have three distinct memories of him and RC airplanes. The first one was when the maiden flight of his Piper Cadet found it's way into an apple tree in our back yard. The second was watching him fly his second plane, something called a Swizzle stick off into oblivion. He couldn't tell if it was coming or going, so he killed the power on it and off we went to hunt for it. I don't recall finding the plane, but we did find a stand of marijuana plants that someone had planted in a grove of trees in the farmland that surrounded our acre in the country. The third memory was a lesson in gusting winds. Dad had decided that RC planes with engines were too hard to fly and decided that an RC glider would be better. One hundred feet of surgical tubing and one hundred yards of string made a good launching device, and worked well until the winds were a little over what he wanted to launch in. But at the persuasion of 2 or 3 local kids he decided to launch anyway. Well, gusty winds and balsa wood construction don't always mesh well. As he performed the dive and climb required for removing the launch mechanism, a gust of wind snapped off the wings, and the fuselage become an ad hoc air to surface missile. A mild of form of "get-there-itis" - something I dare not attempt to duplicate. Not any of those three things.

A couple years later in my freshman year I took a class called "Aeronautics" basically because it fit into my schedule and the counselor said that if I was good at math and science I should do ok with it. It turns out that the class doubled as private pilot ground school, and that our final exam would be the FAA written. Quite a bit to bite off and chew for a 13 year old. I had skipped sixth grade 2 years previous, and so even though I passed the final exam the 2 year expiration period came and went with me wishing I could have started flight lessons. But at the time I was essentially too young, and we really didn't have the money for it. High school and college came and went, and the thought of flying occasionally crossed my mind, but had neither the time or the money (or so I thought) to pursue getting my private license. I was always worried about paying of the Jeep (don't even buy a new one by the way - biggest POS I ever owned) or the motorcycle, or the truck, or just found other things that were less time consuming, and less costly than flying. Flight Simulator 2000 was cheap enough for me, and I got pretty good at holding altitudes, and headings, and even landing the plane - after a few dozen crashes of course.

Then, in July of 2002 after driving past a private airport, probably somewhere around the order of well over a thousand times, I decided to make a left turn into the parking lot, walked into the flight school and said what's it going to take to get my license? (In financial retrospect I never should have stayed at my friends house the night before and call into work that morning.) After talking for a few minutes, and getting the standard introductory speech, I said I would be back tomorrow for my introductory flight. I wrote the check for $49, and off we were to the plane. I got the introductory preflight, and sat in the left seat as we went over all the instruments. Of course, from flying FS2000 I recognized what they all were, and some of the ground school from 15 years previous was starting to come back to me. I started up the plane and Chris had me taxi to runway 2, where he made the radio call for departure. I guess since I handled the plane so well on taxi he had me perform the take-off roll as well. He warned me about needing right rudder and off we were - more or less on centerline. After a few maneuvers, and climbs and descents, it was back to the airport.

"You did so well at all the maneuvers, how do you feel about landing the plane?"

"You serious? Sure, I can do that."

He was ready at the controls to take over if need be, but he didn't have to touch them at all. I put the power setting where it needed to be, deployed the flaps, and I set N3979K down on runway 2 with a chirp-chirp, and my intro flight was done. We tied the plane down, I bought the Jeppesen private kit and was on my way. I was the first student for a new CFI named Anthony and finished my training for my airplane single engine land rating at the end of October. Unfortunately, it was time when "the skies of November turn gloomy," and due to the weather didn't receive my private license until January 8, 2003. I was not planning on getting my instrument rating for a couple years as I felt no need for it. That was until I had a couple of cross country trips cancelled due to cloudy weather. The rest 2003 and beginning of 2004 was spent with everything leading up to the obtaining the instrument rating.

I got my credit card bill at the end of 2003, and was shocked at how much I had spent on flying. The gears started to turn in my head, and I looked at the number of hours flown, and what I spent on rental and decided that I was tired of paying rental costs and fighting with other people for the use of 3 or 4 planes at the field. So an on again off again search for a plane began, and one day I stumbled on 2212R for sale in Charlotte, NC. I obtained my instrument rating on May 8, 2004 and on May 13th flew on a one way ticket to Charlotte, NC. The next morning I was picked up by the owner, handed him the balance of the money I owed him, and off I was in MY plane back to Michigan. Since then, I've put on 90 hours, and countless miles. But still, there was more I needed to do...

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