At Last....

So I went up with my instructor on Friday and did a mock checkride. It wasn't the greatest flying I have done, but all the maneuvers were within standards and my instructor said that I was ready for the checkride. I was going to go practice Saturday but decided to go to the lake with some friends instead to decompress a little, and so it begins....

The best way to start this tale is mention that I was absolutely worn out after getting back from the lake. In retrospect, it may not have been the wisest move to go to the lake the day prior to a checkride, given that I am always so tired and fatigued afterwards (could it be the constant 100 degree heat?!?). So, we got back and settled in about 9 last night and glanced over a little stuff for the checkride and went to bed. You are betting I got a good night's sleep, aren't you? Yeah, not so much. At about 1 in the morning I woke up and my mind started spinning. The bad thing is I was awfully tired but when my mind starts going, there isn't really any shutting it down. So for the next 4 hours, I mentally quizzed myself on everything under the sun about flying. I finally got up about 5 and started planning the cross country portion. Sometime in the night, the examiner sent an e-mail that he had flown late Saturday night and wouldn't make it to the airport until about 9:30 or so. Great, so now I had MORE time to kill AND my examiner was going to be tired! At about 7, I headed out to the airport to kill a little time and on the way, the examiner called and said the visibility looked too bad and would be showing up a little later. A little later it was....almost 11 in the morning. When he showed up, I was just about to fall on my face from exhaustion and the "butterflies" that had lasted for a good 10 hours. After some good 'ole fashion bullshitting, we started the oral portion. I was really surprised at how easy it seemed and I only had to look up one thing. Either it was pretty darn easy or I was throughly prepared...hard to say, I guess. After the oral, I headed out to start preflighting the airplane...the fun was really about to start.

The last couple of weeks have been fairly pleasant to fly wind-wise. Really, no winds more that about 10 knots...but that was over today. From the moment I left the house, the winds were howling pretty good. What luck, huh? As a matter of fact, I really hadn't flown the new airplane in any winds to speak of...yep, this will be fun. So we get the plane all ready to go and I give him the best passenger briefing that has ever been given, until he asked if he should close the door as we taxi onto the runway! D'Oh...what a way to start out! We take off and head towards the first point on my flight plan. He asks a couple of questions about my speed, altitudes and such and then gives me a "diversion" to another airport. After I get us turned towards there and get a groundspeed, he says "that's good, now track the VOR" and I do that for about 5 seconds then he says, "That's good, let's do some maneuvering." So I transition to slow flight followed by power on and power off stalls. The power on wasn't the prettiest and I redo it...I may not have had to, but I did it anyway. We then head to another airport for the soft field and "slip to landing" approaches. The soft field wasn't the softest and the first slip was UGLY! The winds were being called variable 15 gusting to 24, so I imagine the airplane (and myself) was at the crosswind limit. I had read about "running out of rudder" but hadn't experienced it until today. The second slip to landing was much better and made me grin a little since I had heard through the grapevine that the "slip was one of the examiner's favorite". After that, we went and did a turn around a point which I NAILED even with the strong winds. We started climbing out and then the fun-filled "forced landing" was executed, again...really without flaw. At that point, he said, "OK, let's head back" to which we did and I did a short field landing. Truth be told, that was the first time I had EVER done that. I was a little worried about it since I knew I hadn't done it and the winds were blowing me all over hell's half acre. Coming over the trees on final, I ballooned up about 200 feet and thought I was going to have to do a go around, but instead, I transitioned into a "slip to landing" (Sorry, I don't think I explained a "slip"...basically, it's positioning the airplane in such a way that it looses altitude quite quickly.) that got me back on the correct approach and put the airplane right where I wanted it, DAMN, I even impressed myself with that one! As I taxied off the runway, he told me to take us back to parking. As I stopped the plane and pulled the mixture to "Idle Cut Off" and the prop came to a smooth stop, he said "Congratulations, you passed." He offered a couple points of advice on the cross winds and told me that I was a damn good pilot. In my life, that is by far one of the best things I have ever heard. As he went inside to get the paperwork, I pushed the airplane into it's spot and I had the biggest grin on my face I have had in very long time. I then went inside and BS'ed with the examiner a little bit more and started making phone calls. So it took my just shy of about 5 months to realize my dream of flight...and yes, it IS all that I thought it would be AND MORE. So now, it's time to relax for a week before my LAST master's class begins (Thank GOD!!!) and I will start getting the cross country time to start the instrument stuff because there is no rest for the weary!

On a side note, I created this journal to chronicle my private pilot training and so I will sign off for now. I say for now, because I will also chronicle my instrument training when that begin. Until then, fly safe!!!