It is said many American civilians have gotten the license to drive a plane.
Is is true? What is the percent? How to pass the test?
Google tells me there are 609,306 licensed pilots in the US....which is .2% if my math is good.
I actually was almost a pilot when I was a teenager, so I know more about this than most. If you have 5 or 6 thousand dollars, the mentality required and the time, you can get a license. It wasn't the hardest thing to learn if you have a good mind for mechanics and physics. The hardest part (and why I stopped, and why most people won't even consider it) to get over is the fear. I got almost 50 hours of seat time, maybe a 15-20 of that solo, spending almost 4 grand of my parents money, before the fear overcame the fun. It's ridiculously fun to fly a plane, but it's even more terrifying, or at least it was for me.
The story, feel free to not read
so I flew out of suburban St.Louis, the Illinois side of the river. One of my instructors many bits of advice was that if I ever got lost, to just fly west until I hit the Mississippi River, look for the St.Louis Arch and you'll know where you are. My last flight was a x-country solo with a stop and go at one rural airport and a refueling at another...my first (and only) solo refueling. The refueling was at the air port near where my sister was going to college (Eastern Illinois University for those keeping score at home), so I made arrangements to have her come pick me up, show me around and feed me. She did, and she fed me some nasty burgers she and her roommates had made a couple of nights before. So, as one would expect, I get sick flying home. Probably the most scared I've ever been. I never shat or puked, but I felt like it for about 30 minutes....long enough for me to get lost. I eventually found my way to my home airport, tossed the keys on the counter and then dodged calls from my instructor until he stopped trying and apologized to my parents for wasting so much of their money...but they understood where I was coming from.
