My Pilot Training and Aviation Days

Ratings & Endorsements

• I earned my Private Pilot certificate with Airplane Single Engine Land (ASEL) and Instrument Airplane (IA) ratings (PP-ASEL-IA).
• Having an Instrument rating is notoriously demanding, requiring absolute precision to fly solely by reference to the cockpit instruments through clouds, fog, and low-visibility weather environments.
• I also worked for and secured my High-Performance Airplane Endorsement (for aircraft with engines over 200 horsepower like the Cessna 182 Skylane) and Complex Airplane Endorsement (requiring managing retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable-pitch propellers in the Piper Arrow).

The Commercial and CFI Track

• Over my flying years, I accumulated 270 hours of Pilot in Command (PIC) flight time.
• I was highly active and ambitious in my aviation journey, working steadily toward my Commercial Pilot (CP) certificate, with the ultimate goal of becoming a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) to teach others the art of flight.

The Devastating Logbook Theft

• My aviation career was cut short by a heartbreaking event: my physical pilot logbook was stolen.
• In aviation, a logbook is not a casual diary; it is a legal, physical document containing the unique ink signatures and official stamps of certified flight instructors for every hour of dual training, instrument approaches, cross-country flights, and checkrides. It is the sole primary legal proof of your endorsements, currency, and aviation history.
• Reconstructing a stolen logbook is a monumental, bureaucratic mountain—requiring tracking down years of old flight schools, individual instructors who may have moved or retired, and petitioning the FAA with secondary records.
• The theft of that irreplaceable record took all the wind out of my sails. Confronted with the staggering paperwork and re-certification required, I ultimately decided to step away from completing the Commercial and CFI tracks.

Key Stories & Memories

• Earning My Private Pilot License in 39 Hours at Eagle Flight Center: Watching planes from BiiN/Jones Farm, daily training with instructor Mark (Flight Instructor), and finishing PPL in 39 hours.
• The 52-Mile Fifty-Dollar Hamburger Run to Albany Airport: Logging cross-country IFR time on 52-mile runs to Albany Municipal Airport for the classic The 50-Dollar Hamburger.
• Two-Hour Lunch Flights Around Mount St. Helens in a Cessna 172: Midday flights with Intel coworkers, climbing to 8,000 feet over the volcano crater, and descending over downtown Portland, Oregon.
• Watching Fourth of July Fireworks Across Oregon from 3,000 Feet: High-altitude fireworks flight with mother Retha Schwartz, viewing the simultaneous light shows across Salem, Oregon, Portland, and Hillsboro, Oregon.
• Flying My Family IFR to Tacoma Narrows and the Full-Moon Night ILS: Flying mother Retha Schwartz, brother Russ Schwartz, and grandmother Lorene Pickett to Tacoma Narrows Airport for brother Ron Schwartz's wedding reception; night return skimming moonlit stratus clouds, watching lightning near Mount Rainier, and executing a textbook ILS approach into Hillsboro Airport.
• Gear-Up Belly Landing in a Piper Arrow at Hillsboro Airport: Flying passenger Lori Harriger to The Dalles, Oregon in a Piper Arrow, being offered a gap to cut into the Hillsboro pattern, landing gear-up at the runway intersection, and taking the confidence-restoring ferry flight from Aurora State Airport.
• Upgrading to the High-Performance Cessna 182 Skylane: Stepping up to the 230-hp Cessna 182 Skylane at Eagle Flight Center to earn the High-Performance Airplane Endorsement.
• The Student Solo Cross-Country and Five Miles West over the Pacific: Flying the student long Solo Cross-Country Flight triangle from Hillsboro to Eugene Airport to Southwest Oregon Regional Airport in North Bend, Oregon, and alarming tower by declaring himself "five miles west" over the Pacific Ocean.

The Parallel to Coding

• Flying high-performance, complex aircraft under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in a Cessna 172 and other aircraft remains one of the achievements I am most proud of.
• There is a profound parallel between aviation and software engineering: both demand intense systems-thinking, rigorous checklists, divided attention, deep spatial/situational awareness, and split-second analytical problem-solving. Whether you are navigating an IFR approach in a complex cockpit or debugging a kernel-level thread, the mental model is the same—absolute precision, absolute focus.