My dad had his license, as well as instrument and instructor ratings.
I have something like 50 hours logged, mostly in a Cessna 152, but some in 172's and even a 182RG. I've soloed, done solo-cross country, got most of my instrument hours in. I think I needed a few more cross country hours and never took the written or the check ride.
I also flew a
Varga Kachina with my instructor. Loved that plane, because I was in the front seat and it felt to me like what a Spitfire must have felt like. The instructor was just a voice in my headphones, so it was like I was flying by myself. Unfortunately someone -- not me -- wrecked that plane by landing it a few hundred feet short of the runway years later.
I was mostly a good pilot; I could set it down on the numbers so softly you didn't know that you had transitioned to the ground (my Dad and I used to have competitions that way). I could maintain altitudes and headings very well, and I could navigate very well also (that comes from starting to fly in the right seat of the 182RG when the top of my head was well below the top of the instrument panel. But I wasn't good at emergency proceedures -- I could do stalls and stuff, but if the engine ever quit or I put it into a spin -- both unlikely, of course -- I would have been in deep trouble. Also, I never really got the hang of the radio -- couldn't really hear what they were saying, so I'd do stupid stuff like respond to the tower's instructions that were actually for someone else.
I stopped when I realized that it was an extremely expensive hobby and I didn't really see myself paying the $50-an-hour back then to fly after I got my license. I did love those $100 hamburgers with my Dad, though.
2Cor521
(formerly and occasionally Cessna N2198S)