I wish I pursued flight; I was trained by a friend who was an agricultural pilot and commercial flight trainer...the story is:
He was working as an ag pilot in a Piper Pawnee PA-25, and he also had an Grumman Ag Cat, with which he would spray, as his main job (and training was a side gig at the local regional air base). He would get all the hard jobs where other pilots had trouble accessing (strip, terrain, distance from base, etc), so developed a rep for working miracles with his spraying. He trained me (as fearless as I am - without being remotely reckless, apparently a unique combination per his opinion), to do the jobs that the Piper or the Ag Cat couldn't do, like ravines, mountainsides, and the like. So, as completely illegal as this is, he got a set of quick release booms to mount beneath the wing/anchoring on the axle and tank system to sit in the passenger seat made, and he decided to train me as the pilot of this totally under the radar beast. So, not being an 'actual' pilot holding a licence, there was back then a loophole in the laws, that meant I wouldn't get in trouble if I was caught.. hahaha. His method was to sit in the passenger side, and tell me to slalom between the poles, below the wires without hitting the wings on the power poles as I went. A little tricky, but achievable. For a time, anyway, before airspeed shedding from all the yawing made control surfaces less responsive. Anyhow, after I mastered the slalom (which was the hardest of the skills apparently), he said I was ready to go! I would fly to the location at dusk, land in a field away from the farmers airstrip, and wait till early morning to pop over in the truck (I mean an actual truck; not what aussies call a ute) to collect the chemicals from the local supplier, and operate the loader for the Piper and the Ag Cat), collecting around the entire days worth of chemical required for the planes to spray (it was a big truck, with a custom huge removable tank anchored on to the tipper bed that I would crane on and off with the loader bucket and chain). Then, as the Piper/Ag Cat (depending on what he took to the site) was zooming up and down the fields doing the most perfect P-turns you've ever seen, I was scrapping around along hillsides, dodging trees, rocks, and spending time trying not to tear the Dacron off the wingtips. All illegal spraying from a recreational aircraft 🙂 I personally loved it, and found it was so calming, and I never crashed! Unlike my trainer (he always survived, but I have no idea how he went through so many aircraft haha).
So that was my introduction into flight, and why I have the particular style of piloting that I have (people often say they wish they'd brought spare underwear when coming for a little circuit with me, but that is what you get when you fly with No Formal Flight Training Airways! hehe).
I did have a couple of engine failures, and found that the glide on the Thruster T300 was pretty impressive for what it was besides the heavy oversized engine causing a nose-down situation, so it was always in safe hands with me because I always had a place to set it down within view no matter what terrain I was over (had an oversized aftermarket Rotax engine, and a huge prop with this fixed pitch that took bites of air that made the entire fuselage shudder! It was the bestest most awesome beast to fly).
He also had access to a little Tobago, which was so cute, and had carpet on the ceiling, and like sitting in a 1969 Nissan Z432 Fairlady with a targa top 🙂
However I used to pop everywhere in the Thruster, because it was just so quick and easy, manoeuvrable and could land pretty much anywhere.
I used to show off when landing at the local airbase, with my trademark extremely short 3-point landings, where I was told it looked like I skidded all the way in like I was about to crash, and then put it down like a feather. The trick was to bring it almost to a nose up airspeed stall just feet off the ground, then drop the nose to parallel, with a blip or two of throttle just before contact 🙂 Thats what I used to do when landing in places that didn't have an airstrip, and surrounded by trees or rocks.
I have flown a fair few times since, when I would catch up with my friend, and really enjoy it.
Thanks for the post - I really enjoyed reading!