It's just me...a Searey fanatic like you...
Well, Hello There
It's just me, John McLeroy.
Some of you are familiar. If not then you really should know I'm a pilot who (like, really really) loves to fly anything and nearly everything. I think my personal boundaries are bracketed by the gravity vector, known to me as 'plummet mode' that some air sports portend. I need a place to go -an adventure to have- and a glide ratio better than zero to get me there. My passion for all things aviation comes from the curiosity that surrounds the machines and the missions they've been created to solve. In so many ways, I'm very much like you in that I saw an opportunity to have an adventure, needed to figure out how to make that happen, stay alive while having fun doing it and somehow share all the sights, sounds and destinations with my family and friends.
Along the journey I've learned a ton (and continue to learn) about the way to realize my dream of flying Searey's and share it with others. Because I have a Teacher's Heart my 'instructor' mindset kicks in pretty hard when I see others attempting something similar. For years I've talked with, watched others, heard stories, created some situations myself that gave me an opportunity to tell you a thing or two about it. Some of that came from the simple fact that there weren't instructors available when I started. You simply got an aircraft, asked a bunch of questions from anyone you could get a hold of, picked a calm day and launched your tail feathers into the sky! If you got back in one piece, then you could brag about your adventure! If you brought it back with a few pieces missing then you gained 'experience' and could share that kind of adventure. If you had an 'incident' that required the assistance of others (in whatever form that took) then you could really have a rough couple of weeks ahead and possibly need to revisit that dream you desperately wanted to achieve.
I'm simply making a point that in the end I'm really a Searey fanatic. But I also have created a solid foundation for attaining a level of knowledge and safety that allows me to repeat the adventure. You may not realize this but even the Wright Brothers most important vision for their invention was the requirement to stay alive long enough (extremely risky at best back then) so they could teach others to repeat what they knew to be true. They were some of the worlds original Flight Instructors as well as the inventor of their aircraft. What we do today really isn't as far off from what those two did all those years ago.
I wanted to write this blog post a quick way to show you in a video what I actually look like, at least prove that I have actually flown a Searey and tell you through our site that I think we could be similar in so many ways, being connected through a vision of adventure and a passion to share that possibility with others. We just need to always remember the goal of managing the risk through practice and training so we live long enough to repeat as much as you need to!
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Fly safe
