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Finish Kit Update September 2012 Updates September 23, 2012 Training with Alex...... - 0.0 hrs This past weekend I did my transition training with Alex De Dominicis. And I am proud to say I one of hundreds of pilots on his list of students. What a pleasure it was to fly with Alex. We have all had those instructors that say just jump in and lets go fly but I really enjoyed his way of doing things. Alex has a very relaxed style of instructing and discusses with you first about his approach to training and what you are going to do during the flying portion. As a builder just getting back in to regular flying again I found this approach worked well for me. His pre and post flight discussions after each flight made it possible for me to make this transition much easier. His operation is first class in all aspects. All 3 planes look like they are off the show room floor complete with A/C. And when doing low level flying doing the repetitive touch n go thing I cannot emphasize enough how much this really helps. If you are a builder and getting ready for your first flight do yourself a favor and go fly with Alex. The confidence you will have after will be well worth it. On my drive back to Houston on Sunday I spent a lot of time thinking about what Alex and I discussed and what I needed to work on going forward. I really wanted to do the flight when I got back in to town but I did not want to rush things just to get it done but I still made up my mind I was not going to wait very long. In my case I had a good friend with a lot of flying experience including RV's do my actual first flight exactly 31 days prior to my day. I know many folks dream of the day of flying the plane they built themselves but remember your first flight is still "Yours". I decided this approach was the best one for me and I am so glad I did. After seeing my plane fly for 3 plus hours you can only imagine the increased confidence I had in the plane. Anyway I wanted to share my approach with others getting close to completion. I know as you are in the shop building you spend time thinking about this very special day and there are many ways you can do this first flight thing. Just give it thought about what you think will work best for you and your situation and be safe and don't rush it. Also many thanks to John, Jim and Alex for helping me with this process. BTW.... I put this post on VAF and I got front page 3rd time in less than 60 days!!!! This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft. My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.