My son has his multiengine ATP and CFI ticket and I have occasional pass privileges. :)

Commercial, multi-engine, seaplane, and instrument here. All of which I used to use - and then in 2006 I had kids. Now I'm lucky if I fly 5 hours a year. Fortunately for me, the basic "how to fly a plane" skills don't really seem to fade away.. instrument flying skills are a different matter. I can still control the plane under instruments just fine, but find myself way behind on the "what's going to happen next" part. I get an instrument proficiency check with an instructor every so often to keep me legal, but I limit my instrument flying to basically climbing or descending through the marine layer we get during summertime in California. No serious weather.

I have my Private SEL, and some glider time (although life got in the way of that checkride). At the moment I've let my medical and currency lapse...

When I started flying often in the big planes, I ran out of time to enjoy the little ones.

This. I could do stalls with my instructor, but I could not force myself to do them alone. I decided it wasn't meant to be.

Like others here, I have my private certificate but a lapsed medical. It seems like the money and time to fly never happened at the same time.

It's interesting to read other's experiences with stalls. I had similar qualms, so my dad took me up and we did stall after stall in a Cessna 152 for about two hours. (My dad also has his private certificate.)

A side note: I was 18 years old the first time I flew in an airplane and didn't personally know the pilot.

I was grounded years ago for medical reasons, flying a 757 as a FO. The only license I can hold now is a PPL, but in my part of the world it's a very, very expensive hobby - we're talking USD 250/hour for a clapped out C-172 that are decades older than myself.

Still suffering from the flying bug, I tried my hands on ultra-lights, but didn't fancy the way they fly - too nervous, too fidgety and requiring too much constant attention. Not quite to the level of a helicopter, but way more work than I was willing to put into it. In short, it wasn't my kind of fun.

I'm now flying gliders, having gone solo for the first time earlier this year and looking to get my license by the end of the season. The club I'm in has a very sexy 2-seater Duo Discos (with a 'get out of trouble engine tucked away in fuselage behind the cockpit), which I'll be allowed to fly when I've done 50 starts. So next year, at around the same time as this, I'll be able to take friends and family up for a ride.

Gliding is the most enjoyable flying I've ever done. Not only does the aircraft fly and behave very, very well, flying them properly is both a technical and mental exercise that ticks all the right boxes for me.

Still miss taking a 757 for a spin though, and probably always will. Can't say I miss the job of an airline pilot as much; these days the fun is long, long gone and the T&C's are rapidly deteriorating. I'm 12 years into my second career now, still working in aviation, and am making about the same money as freshly minted Captain at my previous airline. Difference is I'm home almost every night, don't have to fret losing the license every year medical grounds, don't have to adopt the lifestyle of a vampire (I flew cargo and had no ambition of ever flying SLF), and don't have to deal with the incessant whinging so common amongst the airline pilots of today.

Still miss the 757 :(

How does flying in a simulator compare versus the real thing? I have seen now where in Canada there is a simulator that you can buy time in, I would imagine it is cheaper than even flying a single engine, let alone figuring a way to get to fly a 757.

PPL, IA, tailwheel, HP, Complex. Usual steed is a C-182 which I get to fly for customer visits within 300 miles as it is more economical that driving (timewise). Like most pilots, I long for something that can go coast to coast, can get to flight levels in pressurized comfort, is quicker, has FIKI, turboprop reliability and that dream avionics suite. Yep that TBM-900, PC-12, Meridian etc all look really nice. We can all dream, right?

The discussion on stalls is interesting. I was never a great fan and it took a lot for me to go out to the practice area on my own and practice stalls "just for the fun of it" during my PPL training. My primary instructor showed me some basic spin entries and made sure I could recover from a spin, which helped my confidence a lot. I also had a friend who was a CFI and a 10,000 hour glider pilot and he taught me a lot about trading energy for altitude (and vise-versa) and also showing me what a GA plane could really do, such as short fields on grass.

What really helped was a post PPL 10 hour upset recovery course and tailwheel transition in a 8K-CAB (Super Decathlon). BTW the 8K-CAB really teaches the typical spam-can driver that the rudder pedals are more than just footrests! Getting the plane upside down, all types of spins, accelerated stalls, recovery from really extreme attitudes etc. was all very good practice and helped seal my confidence. I still don't like aerobatics and prefer smooth, level flight just above the cloud tops on an IFR clearance but I feel confident I could recover from most upsets, given sufficient altitude. My big worry is an encounter with wake turbulence or violent wind-shear on approach.

I was ready to take the SE/CPL when life got in the way but the CPL maneuvers are also really run - chandelles, steep spirals, lazy 8's, 8's on pylons and steep turns (55-degrees - that will teach you about overbanking tendency).

Some people don't have the stomach for it (my wife for one!) but with practice, you should be able to overcome your fears. Interesting last point - the first time I did stalls in a turn was on my PPL checkride. I just recall thinking that as long as I am coordinated (basic premise for all stalls), nothing bad will happen, and guess what? that turned out to be the case.... I can highly recommend Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche.

By privately do you mean as a leisure activity, the one who does enjoy piloting an aircraft or else? I don't hold an ATP and i'm very far from being familiar with the controls from an airplane, but i have flown as a passenger in a series of aircrafts. Ranging from Citations,Turbo Commanders,Gulfstreams,King Airs. If this is valid. The biggest i've been in was in a Gulfstream G450- that's as top as i have gone.

Not really comparable, unless you are talking about a full motion sim, in which case you would suffer from massive overload given that the sim would likely be for a complex jet. The sim is good for practicing procedures and things you would never do in the real world and would cost way more than an hour in a typical GA plane or a discovery flight. I flew in a Falcon 900EX sim once and even as a 400 hour pilot, I was surprised by the complexity of the plane and the realism of the sim. I didn't pay for it BTW, but I also had to go at 2:00 AM as that was the only free time! Oh and I got to log the time as I had an ATP ab-initio/check pilot in the right seat!

I'd really advise you to go to your local airport and ask the local flight school for a discovery flight. If you are by chance in the Portland, OR area I would be happy to take you on a flight BTW. I am mentoring a couple of student pilots.

At the local flight school you will probably pay <$70 for the intro flight and it will give you an idea of what it is like in a small GA plane. It is cramped, noisy, everything will be foreign from the way the plane moves to the foreign language the pilot will be talking and there will be unusual smells that are a combination of oil, gas, hot electronics and old plane (I can't describe it any better). You will either love it or hate it. That's how I got started, although the weather was far from ideal, with low cloud bases, rain showers and a stiff breeze.

For your first flight choose a calm day with good visibility and ceilings and go early in the day if it is summer, to avoid thermal bumps. Get a log book so you can log that first flight!

There is no 'save' and 'restore' in real life. Unfortunately.

PPL here. Got it in college; the school I went to first had an aviation department and their own airfield. Use it just for fun; I've flown over Boston a bunch of times, NYC three times, and a $100 pizza run :D:cool:

That distinct lack of functionality has resulted in slight amounts of nervousness while flying.

Wasn't Daniel Webster College was it? Just a shot in the dark!

^^ Excellent Advice here. A simulator is much worse value for money than a real flight in GA, plus you get to log it! Cloudship I see you're in New England, I can probably recommend a good flight school/instructor in the area if you're ever interested just PM me!

Nope, but good guess! I started school in the midwest, then finished in the BOS area. I do know someone who went to DWC though!

A mate has a Cessna that we take short hops in but otherwise not really.