sin,

yep, my instructor even checks over the plane at the end of a day's flying sometimes. b4 we ever started lessons he told me he'd teach me about pre-flight checking, so that's covered for sure.

it sounds like you could stand to go bike riding more often.. i'd suggest you wear a high quality hard hat. some pilot might drop a 4 stroke engine or something. ha

sorry about the car breaking down, and the unexpected expense. real bummer. my daughter recently had a $2k repair bill. maybe yours won't be so much.

i won't be able to check out the repairs to the eagle and go flying again for another week and a half. no tellling how the weather will be by then. we'll see.

elad