No, this isn’t me in that tree… I started the ground school portion today — 45 hours of classroom theory before I get behind the yoke. This is an article about a little aviation mishap in the States (the pilot was unhurt, apparently):
Neatorama: Plane Crashed Next to Flight School Sign!
Thanks to Sue for sending me the Neatorama article! Here’s the Snopes article as referenced in the photo and in Neatorama.
Ground School, Part I
I wanted to start ground school last month when I registered for my private pilot’s training, but the weather conspired against me!
Brampton Flight Centre is an hour away, and when I tried to join the Saturday class intake several weeks ago it snowed and I had no interest in driving through a whitewash. I could do the classes out of order (except for meteorology and navigation), but I preferred not to mix the classes up or skip orientation. So I waited until this month’s intake on a day that I could attend, and it happened to be Wednesday. There are four rotations of ground school per month, and each class is three hours, from 7:00-10:00pm except for today, which began at 6:00 to include an orientation. I had to leave work early, jump in a cab and race home, fetch the car from my parking stall and get on the Gardiner Expressway before the rush hour traffic locked me in. I made it exactly on time, which means theoretically I should be able to leave work on time, take transit home, get the car and make it for 7:00pm. I’ll find out in a week! It means full days on Wednesdays and more driving than I like to do during the week (that would be ANY) for 15 weeks in a row, but I’m looking forward to this part of my training. It’s just the commuting I’m not thrilled about, but I can live with it.
I thought I might be in a small minority of females taking flight training, and yes, there was only one other there besides me. I’ll see more as time goes by, I’m sure. The classroom is a good size but there were maybe 20 or so students at this first session; apparently February is the slowest month for ground school. I wanted to begin now because by the time I finish the classes the weather will be good for flying and I won’t want to be stuck in a classroom then. 15 weeks will take me to around the middle of May, and the days will be longer — which means more flight time. This is the best time to start ground school, in my opinion. I just have to get over my dislike for winter driving.
The other consideration is that right now I’m in the cheapest portion of flight instruction. Once ground schooling is finished, the next stage is about $200 an HOUR, and I’m going to need these months to save up the money for instruction and plane rental. It kills me to think I gave away David’s flight bag (headsets and all) and the plane was sold, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Gigi’s Papa thinks I should buy a DSLR (digital single reflex camera) to take my photography hobby one step further, but I told him I can’t afford a camera AND flight training — for this year, my goal is to work toward the license. Once I have the license, I’ll think about a DSLR again. After all, I can’t fly the plane AND take aerials, right? 
Click here to read the comments on the screenshot above in Flickr.
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