Full Circle

This previous week marked an important event in my quest of flight training. This week, I came to the threshold of my flight training- the checkride. Consequently, this major event occurred on the very same week of my two year anniversary of the start of my flight training, so obviously, the pressure and determination was on me that I desperatly wanted to finish what I had started two years ago.

Saturday morning, August 4th, I awoke to my heart racing, burning up; the sheets of my bed lay on top of me. My body knew what was going to happen today. Laying there for a few more minutes, I silenced my alarm radio, got up and looked out the window. Skies were gray and clouds were low. "Just great," I thought to myself. "Just great." Getting dressed and eating breakfast, I took my time as if to delay what was inevitable.

As, time passed, I knew that I could delay no longer, and began to head off to the airport. Upon my arrival, the weather looked no better, and as I had planned, I called in for a weather briefing. "VFR not recommended," the briefer advised. This morning was not off to a great start. As I was on the phone, the examiner arrived, an older man with an experienced, somewhat friendly face. Hanging up the phone, I met with him and my instructor and after a bit of chit chat, I walked in to the meeting room and the examiner closed the door behind me.

I was inside the pressure cooker. I sat down as I handed the examiner my log books to verify that I was indeed qualified to sit for the checkride and after a few brief minutes, "Everything looks to be in order here. Looks like we can get started." After being briefed on how the exam would be conducted, the barrage of questions began. Upon his first question, I felt my heart sink. I was not sure how to respond, but after a brief pause, he rephrased his question, to which I leapt to answer. The questions continued, and with each and every one, my confidence grew. A few questions were littered here and there I had had trouble searching the answer for, but after a pause, finally found one. This process continued, question after question, some I knew, and others I had to take a few moments.

An hour and a half passed and the examiner deemed me successful in my oral examination. Looking out the window behind me, the clouds and weather had made no improvement. Seeing this, the examiner looked at me and said, "I'll give you two options: I can give you a certificate of discontinuance, and we'll pick this up another day when the weather is better, or we can do your takeoffs and landings and get them out of the way. The option is yours." Giving it some thought, I opted to perform my takeoffs and landings.

We walked to the airplane, taking my time to carefully review my checklist and thoroughly preflight the aircraft. After giving it my approval, we climbed in, started the airplane, and taxied to the active runway to begin the practical portion. After receiving clearance for takeoff, the examiner said, "Soft field take off." Knowing what to do, I immediately added my two notches of flaps, pulled full aft on the yoke, and began smooth gradual turns out onto the runway. Lining up on the centerline and smoothly adding full throttle, the airplane accelerated to life, lifting off the runway and then leveling off to pick up speed just inches above the surface. After a few moments, I popped the airplane up and began my climb. We circled around the traffic pattern; several aircraft were in the pattern that day, so I had to keep my eyes peeled.

Once abeam the landing point, the examiner said, "Short field landing, and come to a full stop on the runway." Getting clearance for the option, I brought the plan in on final approach, landed, and brought the aircraft to a stop. "Short field takeoff," the examiner said. And executing the short field technique, we were off again in moments. We made two more trips around the traffic pattern, my nerves eating at me every second, terrified that at any moment the examiner would tell me I no longer meet Practical Test Standards. But I never heard those words. Upon our third landing, we pulled off the runway, stopped, and then checked the weather report. The short trips around the pattern had allowed enough time for the sun to appear, and burn off some of the clouds that were causing low ceiling. Here, the examiner again gave me some options. The option of continuing, or brining it in to finish another time. I decided to go for it.

Receiving takeoff clearance, we lined up, throttled up, and lifted off the runway and began to climb to our planned altitude. Unfortunately, after flying through a cloud, I had to drop my cruise altitude by 1,000 feet to stay out of the clouds. Keeping up with my checkpoints, I passed my first just after a few moments, and planned that I'd come up to my next in about 10 more minutes. Feeling satisfied with this, the examiner made me divert to a nearby airport. Easily enough, I began making my way towards the diverted airport, and a few moments later, I heard "good enough."

"Let's set up for steep turns," I heard the examiner say, and after doing one to the left, and to the right, we began the others: slow flight, power on and off stalls, S-turns, turns around a point, emergency descents, climbing turns, descents, VOR tracking all by reference to instruments, to which I heard the examiner say, "Good."

After making our last maneuver, the examiner said, let's head back home, to which I turned on course and headed towards. Once established on our downwind, the examiner did what I expected- pulled the power on me, and told me not to use flaps. Immediately, I requested a short approach from the tower, which I was denied. Adding power, I extended my downwind and waited until the tower contacted me. Moments later, the tower called my base leg and turning in and then on final, the examiner again pulled the power out. "Make it to the runway," he said. Establishing best glide speed, my heart was racing because I knew I was far from the runway because of the extended downwind leg. The plane glided down, the sight picture through the wind screen as if the plane would make it to the runway, and then not. As the plane got closer, I began to realize the plane WAS going to make it, and as I flared, the plane drifted down onto the runway establishing firm contact with the pavement.

Not hearing any words from the examiner, I was not sure if this was a good sign or not. We taxied onto the ramp, shut the plane down. I then looked at the examiner who looked back at me and said, "Congratulations." Waves of relief swept over my body. I had done it; accomplished my goal. I packed up the rest of my items, secured the plane and walked into the FBO with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Receiving my temporary airman certificate, I shook hands with my instructor and closed a chapter in my flight training.

Learning to fly has been one of the biggest dreams of mine since I first stepped foot on an airplane when I was in graduate school. Although it has taken me longer than average, I have no regrets in this journey. There simply is no greater satisfaction in life than making one of your dreams come true. Some parts of this have been difficult, and some parts of the time I have been ready to walk away from it, but I will say this: Having finally made this an accomplishment, I would never trade any of these experiences. Ever.

Changes

Wow, haven't made a post since November.  I'm getting good at this procrastination thing.  Eight long months have passed and so much has changed and so much has remained the same.  I still am not a licensed pilot.  Unfortunately, working a full time job with the availability of only flying on the weekends creates a limited schedule.  Throw in summer's heat and storms and the chances of flying drop down even further.  However, there have been some exciting changes:

Ground Instructor Certification.  That's right.  I'm not a licensed pilot, but I happen to be the holder of a shiny new Advanced Ground Instructor certificate.  This came about by an opportunity of creating accessibility to aviation for others who may not have the time to come to a seated class.  I wanted to create an opportunity to transition ground school work to an online format, and as a result, I had to earn my ground instructor rating.  After about 20 hours of studying, I passed my two tests and a few weeks later, I had my new certificate.  The online class has been a challenge.  To some extent it is easy, but the hours that are required to put into it for grading papers, creating quizzes and tests has been tiresome.  Best of all, I get to do all of this after my 8 hours in the office.

New Technology, new plane.  Since the previous post, no longer do I fly the slow "Pinto of the skies" C-152.  Although most of my training hours have been accumulated in the 152, I am now proud to say that I fly a Cherokee 140.  While I'm not crazy about the increase in the hourly rate, I am quite happy with improved power, cruise speed, and stability.  It seriously feels like driving a Cadillac after hours in the 152.  Furthermore, flying the Cherokee has influenced my preference in aircraft.  If it's not a low wing, I probably don't want to fly it.

Aside from the new airplane, I also upgraded a bit of my technology.  I purchased an NFlightCam, so I now have the ability to review my flight as well as what is said between myself, my instructor, and air traffic control.  I think it's an invaluable piece of technology to review your mistakes and celebrate your accomplishments for today, especially when you nail your soft field landing.  I never get in the airplane without my cameras now.  Furthermore, an upgrade to Final Cut Pro X on my Macbook Pro allows me to shoot different angles and edit my frames together to make a decent looking video.  I'm still trying to get things figured out there, but I'm enjoying the ride thus far.

Finally, I can sat that I'm now in the final stretch.  After nearly two years of work and flying, I have scheduled my private pilot checkride.  If successfully completed, I will be a certificated private pilot.  This has been a long endeavor and a costly one, but I have no regrets.  Learning to fly has been one of the greatest challenges and greatest accomplishments of my life to date.  From here, I plan to fly intermittently, while saving money to being working towards an instrument rating.  I am also determined that it will not take me as long to finish this next rating as long as it has taken me to finish the current one I am working on.