My First Year as a Private Pilot

August 18th, 2026. 93 degrees. In an airplane with no air conditioning. Anxiety running sky-high.

Shaking hands in front of N109TJ, holding my temporary airman certificate, on the day of my checkride.

I passed my private pilot checkride, and began a new chapter in my life. Not like a start-a-new-career shift, but a change that gave a new freedom, the freedom to hop in a small airplane (currently my preference is a Cessna 172) and go places I could not go before.

The first 365 days of being a private pilot have been, well, not so pilot-like. Part of that is simply the fact that after such a grueling journey to get my license, I needed to refocus on some normal life stuff, not to mention recovering from the cost of training. So my first year just didn't involve a ton of flying. Hopefully this next year will look a little different.

I wanted to recap my first year with some flight stats since earning my certificate:

  • Total flights: 13
  • Total time: 15.6 hours
  • PIC time: 14.3 hours
  • Dual training: 1.3 hours
  • Landings: 22

Total time now including training: 115.4 hours

Two days after my checkride, I tested positive for Covid, so that kinda put a damper on things right away, and I did not fly for over a month. Renting my favorite plane from the flight school (N109TJ) was proving to be difficult, because it's everyone's favorite plane. So I checked out a different 172 to re-familiarize myself with it, and then the next day I took my wife up as my first passenger.

A quick note about each flight:

  • 2025-09-22 (0.9h): Familiarization flight with N2132W
  • 2025-09-23 (0.8h): Nikole as my first passenger
  • 2025-10-11 (1.9h): Flew Owen over Clemson University
  • 2025-11-01 (1.1h): A flight over north GA in hopes of finding leaves changing color, but I think I was a couple weeks early
  • 2025-12-04 (1.3h): I flew with my instructor to KLZU to re-familiarize myself with towered operations, knowing I was wanting to join a flying club there
  • 2026-01-04 (1.4h): Pattern practice at KGVL
  • 2026-01-21 (2.0h): Aeroventures Club checkout flight in N997MC
  • 2026-02-08 (0.4h): One lap in the KGVL pattern with Stella
  • 2026-02-28 (1.8h): Flight with Owen to KTOC, where we parked the plane for the first time and checked out the FBO
  • 2026-03-14 (1.0h): Flight with my father-in-law
  • 2026-05-27 (0.5h): I was nearing the 90-day currency requirement for Aeroventures, so I did a very quick flight
  • 2026-06-03 (1.3h): An early evening trek to Athens to practice at their tower, and to get my landing currency up to snuff
  • 2026-08-14 (1.2h): Flight to KGVL to prep myself for the shortfield at Wimpys (9A0)

Airports:

KGVL KLZU KCEU KJCA KTOC KAHN

Some quick points

I averaged 1.3 hours per month. Not where I want to be, but considering everything, I'm happy with that.

Landings: 22 landings in my first year as a private pilot. Not gonna lie... I struggled with landings during my training. My training period included 428 landings. It was a nice change of pace to leave the pattern.

I knew after earning my certificate that I wanted to join a flying club. Aeroventures is, in my view, one of the best clubs around Atlanta, and it's reasonably close to my house. I successfully made the transition to this club and I've been very happy with it. The planes are nice (granted, I only fly N997MC for now), the rates are in the ballpark of being reasonable.

I realize I'm still in the The Killing Zone (yes, I still need to read that book) of 50-350 hours, but I feel much more confident in my flying abilities. Just little things, like talking to tower, entering traffic patterns, landings, using avionics, etc are more familiar territory.

Next steps

For my next year, I want to shoot for flying at least 3-4 hours per month. This will keep me fresh, and if I choose my flights strategically, it should allow me to see a bunch of new places.

I still want to take some of my family up in the sky, if they are willing to go with me. We've also got a few trips in mind to go see some family.

The Recreational Aviation Foundation has really caught my eye here in the last several months. I was already familiar with them, but at one of our EAA 611 chapter meetings recently, one of their members gave an inspiring presentation about his trips to RAF airfields. Their mission is admirable, and I want to check out many of their airstrips in the southeast United States. Their new network of airstrips in eastern Tennessee (see Fly Rocky Top) is looking really good!

Along the lines of Next Steps, I made a work-in-progress Aviation Bucket List.

Shout out to the Midlife Pilot Podcast for such an amazing show. That show encapsulates a lot of how I feel about aviation right now. I've been listening for a few months now, and I'm currently making my way through the entire back catalog, on episode 32.