Fighting boredom.
 

I get bored these days flying straight and level from A to B. Increasingly I find myself going up to play around in some Cumulus canyons or down amongst the weeds scaring the crap out of rabbits and the like.


My arrivals at base frequently involve a high speed, downwind low approach and go-around onto a teardrop to the into-wind runway, and I fly up and down the coast at ten feet.


Should I get myself a mid-life crisis motorcycle?

Instead of putting your mid life crisis in danger of a sudden motorbike crunch, try devoting yourself on a Sunday to some sincere devotional exercises in a glider ....O Lord, won't you send me just one more climb! as you contemplate the selection of weeds in fields below, or the furrowed brow of a Welsh Black Mountain at five feet from your wingtip....with the possibility of a couple of F18's coming round the corner. That should prove properly stimulating to a man formerly dependent on petrol fumes....think of the environment, mate!

I've done the gliding bit. Gave it up 35 years ago. Aeros lost their appeal years ago. Run out of challenging strips to fly to. Surrounded by risk-averse, magenta line followers and CAP quoters. Battling to keep up with increasingly confusing rules and regulations. :ugh: In short. I'm turning into a Maverick, non-conformist hooligan. Do Hell's Angels have a Flying chapter?

You just need someone equally as hooligan. Then you can do it all it all with someone on your wingtip.

I got a mid-life-crisis motorbike a couple of years ago and haven't deaded myself yet...

Great fun!

The problem I have with gliding is that I can't afford to spend a whole weekend acquiring (if lucky) two 20 minute flights... It would seem, to me at least, to be the complete opposite of fighting boredom.

Sounds like you should either learn proper aerobatics in something suitable, or top up your life insurance and warn your family.

G

Try helicopters, they take up all of your mental capacity, you'll never be bored!

It'll take up his life savings as well :)

What are you flying?

I get the same feeling sometimes, to counter it I download the practical test standards for commercial pilots, transpose a few of the maneuvers like chandelles or lazy 8s etc on to the kneeboarding and go out and pretend I'm on a check ride, ticking off each maneuver after doing a practice attempt then absolute best effort " check ride" example. On the way back I have started making every approach to my home field a practice engine failure.

Get flying gyrocopters (autogyros in old language). Not as expensive as helicopters and good fun. No I don't fly one, but I know a man who does and he reckons they beat fixed wing flying for fun.

When I was getting bored years back, I also trained for my helicopter license. It was very rewarding....

And very expensive!!!

For around the same money you could buy an instructors course and with your obvious flair for bull!!!! you should be very successful

Get a cheapish classic car like a Triumph TR4 or Alfa GTV and do track days or classic racing ?

You're in the wrong place.


Go to Alaska or BC and fly one of these


<===


to lakes that nobody has ever landed on before.

THIS'LL CURE YOU !!
 

Here you go FLYINGMAC - this'll sort you out !!! :D:ok:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L8UCfxmtSw

Get a bike - and with proper training you're no more likely to dead yourself than in an aeroplane (I'm assuming some exaggeration in your descriptions of your flights 'else I'd say biking is FAR safer!).

And bikes are cheap to buy and run. So you can still afford to fly!

I was introduced to biking by fellow pilots, the more adventurous (and skilled) of whom were bikers as well as aviators. Probably not many magenta line followers are bikers!

Just keep doing what you are doing. Eventually everyone here will get to send condolences to the family and speculate why such a good pilot bored a smoking hole in the ground.

Other wise give it up and go find something else to do. I've been flying for a living for 28 years, held a license for 36 years and every time I fly I learn something. Try instructing, you'll learn a lot and students doing their best to kill you will keep the adrenaline rush going.

SND

I know what you mean. I fly for t' job, and it's pretty low on the thrill stakes. But I like low thrills at work, I'm not paying for it.

When I flew privately I found schlepping from A to B became old quite quickly as did listening to Giles Mctish the 3rd beet on about his latest flight bag and his venture into "airways". Instead of hooliganism (tried that and realised I'd kill myself due lack of talent or lack of luck. One would get me!) I found pleasure trying the opposite way.

Got a small open cockpit flying thingy that flew at 10 mph and used to fly it to strips mowed out on basically lawns, beaches, anything. I found it very relaxing. Like personal transport. And it was cheap-ish. I liked to experience gentle flying, away from "flying" circles, flying people and any aviation related entrapments, if you know what I mean. Just a little 'plane and you. No rules, no radio, no one else in flying, no airfields, just bits of the land and "normal" people you visit. I suspect this won't float your boat though :O. Get ya self a power boat for a bit, or take up kite surfing!

Is a motorcycle a mid-life crisis thing if you have owned one continuously since you were 16 ?

Not if you are still only eighteen.