Thanks to PPRuNe for letting this thread stand.
Android has made his descision, but there may be others who are thinking along the same lines, and I'd like to encorage them to 'hang in there'.
I started my PPL when I was 29, and qualified at 30. I thought then I had left it too late (!). And when I'd done it, I wondered if I really wanted to continue. But the amazing thing about flying is - the more you do of it, the more you want to do it. I'm now 51 and enjoying flying more than ever. It still amazes me that despite increasing bureaucracy in all our lives, a PPL can climb into a Chippy or Yak or whatever, and fly it from somewhere like Barton, down through the Manchester Zone (via the LLR), out over Shropshire, down into Herefordshire - almost anywhere really, do some aeros on the way (farms above, villages rotating around a wingtip), and land at a remote farm strip. All without even using a radio if you don't want to.
Most non-flyers are amazed when I tell them that in crowded, controlled, CCTV'd Britain in 2001 an ordinary joe like me can do this. And so can you! There are few areas of modern lfe where you
can still enjoy that sort of personal freedom. Of course, there are responsibilities that go with it - staying out of controlled airspace, keeping a good lookout, not aerobatting over built up areas etc but these are not a problem.
To the ageing PPL wondering if even taxying will ever be fully mastered all this may seem remote. It's not! It may all take longer than it would have done at 20, but if you have even the slightest ability and you want to do it and you stick at it you will be there before you know it.
It's worth a lot of sacrifice and slog. Stick at it if you can - it really is the promised land ;~)
SSD
[ 02 November 2001: Message edited by: Shaggy Sheep Driver ]