I became a Private Pilot, Single Engine Land back in the late '70s and flew until I had to let my medical expire to spend my flying money raising a son.

Once I had the FAA certificate in hand, I went right to flying the old fabric covered tail wheel airplanes: first a Piper Super Cruiser, then Cubs, Super Cubs, Stinson 108, Luscombe, the Citabria and some others... learning mild aerobatics, flying low over the countryside, dropping into friends' pastures for a visit.

The last 5 years I flew was almost all in a beautifully maintained 65hp Piper J3 Cub, out of a country strip north of Dallas. In that ship I was able to pursue mastery of the flying art, in terms of smoothness, grace, precise control, feeling one with the airplane and environment, with no stress or strain on me or the Cub.

Well. It occurs to me that, out of all the motorcycles I have owned and ridden, the Savage is the two wheeled analog of the Cub. It's not fast (it likes almost the same speed range as the Cub: a Cub will go 70 but it's happier at 60, flying grandly along with the door open), it's not wildly responsive but can be operated smoothly, it's not big or modern or exotic, but is a beautiful combination of old school technologies.

And I find myself in the same pursuit on the Savage: going for perfect smoothness and harmony with every turn, shift, start and stop. The Savage is a great teacher of these things. It rewards the effort. It is a tool for Zen.

It is so cool to have old Digger on this board. He has flown the hot ships, both air and space, and ridden hot bikes. But I guarantee he knows this special thing about the Savage. It is a pure motorcycle when it comes to riding for riding's sake. Right on...

There are similarities... the wind, the looseness and tautness of response at different speeds, banking and feeling some G force in turns among them. Both things are finally about energy management.

Some different aspects of physics are involved in the two things.

Learning to fly a wing --  to sense the lift and loading in a wing, to project a path through three dimensional space, to "get it" in such a way that the wing may as well be attached to your shoulders, to think or almost not have to think about it like a bird doesn't have to think about it -- it's a different skill set, a different kind of instinct. But there are similarities. Some of the same parts of the brain and nervous system are in play. Both things beckon. Both things scratch a certain itch and bring pleasure and satisfaction. That's for sure.

Flying "the hard way", on your own dime, is difficult to afford nowadays. It didn't used to be so bad. Today, the cost has to be choking off the supply of new pilots. Which, really, is a national security issue, and also a shame in a cultural sense. Nothing creates trust and self reliance, or humility, like flying does.

And you can't wad the plane on a tight blind turn  
I've done hang gliding, ultralights (briefly) and a friend of my father's once let me have the controls of his Cub (quite illegally I'm sure) for a short stint, huge fun!

I learned to fly in an 8A Luscombe in 1974.  It only cost my $ 12.50 an hour to rent it....including fuel!

I stopped flying in 1979 when I moved to Cincinnati and plain rental was $ 60 an hour!

I got my ticket in the Tomahawk. Never had any desire to do spins. I remember my first solo, I was still flying high on the way home from the airport. What a rush!! Put a bunch of hours on the Warriors after that. Much more stable platform.

I gotta get current again  :'(

I had dreams of doing what Digger did, but there's no way that NASA was going to let a non-engineer Rotorhead have the stick of a shuttle.  Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait to get to heaven and just fly through space on my own !  

I've been around folks who flew some of the tail draggers ya'll have mentioned, but that was waaay back in the 60's.  I went to school for a couple of years at Parks College in Cahokia, IL.  It is an aviation school with roots going back to the near beginnings of US aviation.  
I relate to the feelings of riding & flying.  My mind often takes me back, especially when in the mountains, of when I was flying.  Much more so of when flying helicopters than fixed wing, but thats probably because of the low level stuff we did.  The limited time I had in fixed wing just did not offer the same opportunity unfortunately.
My flying career came to a halt when I was medically grounded for the migraines...kind of tough to get cleared medically to fly when you are taking narcotics.  They frown on that.
I always preferred to fly at 1500-2500' just for the "looking around" aspect.  
I never did get my Commercial Rating but did have an instrument ticket.  At times I've wished I had gone for the commercial when I first got out of the Army, and then gone with the Border Patrol.  They contacted me but at the time I was not interested ... just wanted to party back then...foolish I was.

Drestakil wrote on 07/14/15 at 18:45:39:



The Tomahawk was a sporty trainer. Piper and Cessna both had those $5 or $10 special rides back then and I did them both. The Cessna 152 was nice but I really preferred the Piper's larger cockpit, low wing, great visibility.

I ended up renting a number of 152s later because they were cheap and available almost anywhere.

The one thing the Cessna 152 has over the Tomahawk's design features is better flaps. 152 flaps create a lot of lift. Tomahawk flaps are small and they mostly act like spoilers, letting you get the nose lower at a given glide speed. But that's about it. They don't buy you any significant stall margin.

Another thing, and it got people killed, is that some weird things happened in the Tomahawk's certification process. Some changes were made after certification to cut cost, like fewer wing ribs. The wing ended up with a 10,000 hour service life -- not much. It would oil can like crazy under G load. And this may have messed with the stall characteristics because it would drop a wing in a too-slow pattern turn leading to a number of  fatal stall/spin accidents before they put some stall strips on the leading edge to band-aid the problem.

There were also some airworthiness directives on the T tail attach points. Just some quality issues there that the Cessna didn't have...