February 26, 2011 
A few months ago Groupon offered an introductory helicopter lesson with North Carolina Rotor and Wing at Franklin County Airport in Louisburg, NC (the same location of our skydive). Ever since we experienced our first helicopter flight in New Zealand, Alex has been talking about learning to fly one. The lesson was to include a classroom portion and then an actual flight where you actually man the controls for a short time.
Our friends Lydia and Steve came along as Steve was also partaking of the lesson. Lydia and I sat in on the classroom part and my head was swimming pretty quickly with diagrams of the cyclic and the collective and pedals, worrying about torque and rotor RPM and altitude. I really should have taken physics at some point. The instructor, Tim O’Brien, was really great but it was a lot of information in a short amount of time.
Alex was up first. Unfortunately it was a pretty windy day and it was just a little too windy for Alex to do much. They flew around the area, performing different maneuvers, banking right and banking left and then came down to practice hovering, which is really about the only time Alex touched the controls. I took this high-tech video of him hovering:
I think Alex’s opinion after trying it out was that perhaps it was a little too complicated for his taste. He felt that perhaps his hand-eye coordination is not quite up to the challenge of managing all of the controls. But he still had fun!
Learn to fly is #74 on the 101 Things to Do Before You Die list and I fully plan to learn someday. While I enjoyed riding in a helicopter, I’m not too interesting in learning to fly one, either. Not to mention how expensive it is to get your license (around $14,000).
I did find out that you can get your sport pilot license. Sport Pilot certificates require as little as 20 hours of instruction. The holder of a sport pilot license may fly a light sport aircraft (a 2 place aircraft weighing less than 1320 lbs), unlimited distances within the United States , in good weather, and during daylight hours. And it only costs about $3,500. (Considering how much we’ve spent on other hobbies. See: marathon).
Maybe something to do 2 or so years out.
So who out there can fly a plane? Who has aspirations to? Who thinks it best to leave it up to the drunk commercial pilots?
I love flying IN a plane, but flying it myself is still a little too terrifying for me haha. Good luck with that goal though, it’ll be quite the experience!
Flying the actual plane doesn’t bother me so much. I think the landing would be what I’d worry about.
Flying a plane is on my list too. Where I lived in Ontario you could pay $50 and go up for 30 minutes with a pilot and have a turn with the controls. I always meant to do that, but unfortunately didn’t get a chance before we moved.
I don’t actually care to learn to fly well, or get a licence. I just want to try it for a few minutes
- Cal
When I was like 12, a friend of the family took me up in his plane and I got to man the stick and made the plane go up and down a little. But I think I want to really learn it, understand it, and mostly, say I can land it.
My grandfather was a pilot and I have a lot of fond memories from my youth of going up in the plane and traveling to fly in breakfast events across the Midwest. This is one of the things I cannot wait to do. Yay for alex!
What a cool childhood!
Shoo I can totally fly a plane, I practice on my Wii all the time!
That doesn’t count!
Wow, this must’ve been an awesome experience! I’ve never been on a helicopter before. Between planes and helicopters, I’d pick flying a plane to learn too- after seeing all those end of the world type movies, it’s a skill that looks handy!
I definitely recommend flying in a helicopter at least once. A completely different flying experience.
Soooo coooool! It looks hard. I’ll have to add this to my list. Cool vid too.
I want to take flying lessons, but I don’t want to get a license, especially if they cost that much.
Flying in a helicopter is one of the few transportation methods I haven’t experienced. I think I’ll have to fit in a helicopter somewhere in my next trip.
That sounds like so much fun! I would love to get my pilot’s license. I can’t believe getting a helicopter license is $14,000 and getting a sport pilot’s license is only $3,500. I wonder why?
You essentially get your regular aviator’s license on the way to getting your helicopter license. It takes a lot of hours, compared to the 20 hours for sports license.
I can so totally fly! I am a (not very drunk) Commercial Pilot
And it is the absolute best feeling to be in the air. Helicopter flying is definitely difficult. Not my cup of tea! Flying is the absolute best thing! 
I hope you didn’t take offense at my comment about commercial pilots. I’ve never met a drunk pilot and most of mine have looked pretty sober, so no hard feelings, ok? Interesting that even you, as a commercial pilot, would still say that flying a helicopter is difficult-it must be REALLY hard! Thanks for visiting my blog!
Oh no I did not!
Most of the Pilots are pretty good drinkers 
just not in the cockpit! Yeah Helicopter flying is very hard! I will keep visiting, I subscribed 