Finally. A Day With No Wind.

I have been so busy (and broke) that I haven't been flying in a month. Beside the obvious, we have also had some pretty bad weather and the flying club had one of those rare occasions where both of the 172s were due for inspection at once. Even if I was light enough to fly a 150, only 1 was on-line while the other one was having a major engine overhaul done. Out of 5 club airplanes, only 2 were on-line. So naturally I have been dying to go flying.

We finally got the 172s back on-line so I made a reservation for Monday at 10 AM. When I got to the FBO, my instructor was already there waiting and I was ready too. The winds were absolutely calm. We were going to do more pattern work so I prepared myself for another day of getting beat up. I realize now that I need to spend more time working on coordinating my turns but that was an afterthought doing touch and gos. I finally got a lot more comfortable with my landings after a couple of really dumb mistakes. I had to find a way to relax some because I had such a tight grip on the yoke that my fingers were turning numb. I'm learning to trim like crazy now instead of fighting the back pressure all of the time. The high back pressure has been causing me a lot of problems as I try to flare on landings. It gets to a point where I'm having to pull so hard that I actually pull too hard and the next thing I know, I'm rising. This is bad because by the time I get settled down for another decent, I've bled off all of the energy I needed to make a smooth landing. Chalk it up to why you need a lot of flying time to get your license.

Total flying this time: 1.5 hrs
Total Hours - 4.9

Put One Step In front Of The Other...........

I finally did it! I got my sign off from my ground school instructor Thursday night after class. So what did I do? I made an appointment on Friday to go take my written test. I called the Dallas School of Aeronautics and asked if they had an opening on Saturday afternoon. Their response was an astounding no but she did ask me if I could take it that day. I have been saying that I was ready to take the test for the last 2 or 3 weeks so I just said yes. An hour later, I jumped in the car, drove to Addison and took the test. I probably should have taken my time a little more because I only scored an 80. I missed 11 questions out of 60 (actually 81.666666 but who's counting?) so I know I could have done better. It probably didn't help that I finished in under an hour (you are given 2 1/2 hours to finish).

I am very happy that this hurdle is over. The problem is that when I finally get to the check ride part, the examiner will look at the results and grill me on them for the oral part of the check ride. I won't be able to put up the books just yet. I have to stick to working on the parts that I had problems with until I get my certificate.

Thanks to Dick, Hank and all of my fellow classmates who did a fine job every Tuesday and Thursday evening for the last couple of months. It has been a great journey.

Now on to the next phase.

The End Is Near

As we get closer to finishing our ground school class, I have come to the realization that I have been ready to take my test for about 2 weeks now. So this Thursday night will be our last night and some of the other students have commented that they want to do a pre-flight and and plan a cross country. It's funny because several of the people in the class haven't even started flying yet. I plan to go take the test within the next week and a half, while I'm home. I have taken all of the sample tests we got with our training package but to be safe, I also signed up for 5 more practice tests online. You can go to www.prepware.com and sign up for 5 test at a time for about $15.00.

The good and the bad of it are that I'm ready to take this test. I never thought I would be able to do this with my schedule.

Here's to good study habits.