Cleared direct Gateway.

Yes that’s right, I slept for 11 hours last night. I’m sitting here waiting to head out to the airport. We are going to try a day xc to TUS and then do night landings at IWA. My attention is now focused on the checkride. I can already feel my blood pressure rising.

Simpsons Movie tonight.

The day didn’t start off very well. We had to iron out a few maintenance issues before we could fly. I ended up not getting as much practice in as I intended. But I felt more confident than I had on Tuesday. I taxiied in with my instructor and did a quick swap for the chief instructor. The flight could not have gone smoother. I executed the pattern perfectly. And all except my first landing were within a foot or two of the centerline. After the third landing, he hopped out, and I was off on my own!

I SOLOED!!!! Wow what an awesome feeling! 3 quick laps around the pattern and I was back on the ground getting my shirt cut. The high didn’t hit me while I was in the air but later on while I was driving home. I went home for a bit, ate lunch and took a shower then went back to the airport.

 

When I got back my instructor and I planned out my first VFR cross country flight to Pinal Airpark (KMZJ). I stumbled upon Pinal about 5 and a half years ago when I came out to Arizona to look at colleges. Pinal is a giant graveyard for old airliners. I could not get close to the airport from the car so I always wanted to fly into there. So you can imagine how happy I was when I was informed we would be flying there. My instructor grabbed the controls so I could grab a few pictures which I will post later.

Our intention was to land back at IWA, wait for the sun to set and do a night flight to Tucson (KTUS), come back and do some night landings. But I was beat, my instructor was feeling sick, and the weather did not look like it was going to cooperate. So we canned the flight. I went home and enjoyed 11 hours of sleep.

I spent 2.5 in the airplane with my instructor, cleaning up my maneuvers and then working on landings. My last couple of landings were not perfect. The chief instructor took me up and within 2 or 3 landings I was nailing them perfectly every time. It was good to have another perspective on how to execute maneuvers. 

Afterwards my instructor and a few of the others drilled me on checkride questions. I thought I was underprepared but I did fairly well. I am starting to stress about the oral exam but right now I am focused on soloing.

I went up with the chief instructor this morning for my Pre-Solo and flew like poop. Needless to say I did not get cleared to solo. I am crapped out. I watched a few of the people I went through ground school go out on their solos this morning and it made me pretty upset that I couldn’t. Tomorrow I will work with my instructor and try to fix what is broken.

I’ve slacked off on writing just because I have been so busy. I get home at the end of the day and I am a total zombie. So even if I had a bit of energy to fire up my laptop my posts wouldn’t be coherent.

Days 18, 19, 20, 21

Nothing tremendous to report here. Just more pattern work and flying maneuvers. When I’m not flying I am trying to study for the oral exam.

Day 16:

 It’s hard to believe the program is a quarter of the way over.  We went up this morning and flew out to the southeast practice area.  Once we arrived I started polishing up my maneuvers.  The are coming along pretty well except I’m a bit timid when it comes to stalling the airplane.  My emergency descents are fine as are my steep turns.  I need to memorize my checklists which isn’t that hard. 

Day 17:

Today was my second day flying out at 5am.  Which means I am up at 345am to be at the airport by 445am.  Needless to say I am pretty beat.  But it is better than sleeping in and flying during the heat.  Plus I feel more productive when I leave the airport at 745am and I’ve accomplished a bunch so early in the day. 

We remained in the pattern today choosing to polish up my landings.  I also had not practiced a go around or crabbing on final so we worked on those as well.  The go around was pretty self explanatory, but crabbing will take some more practice.  I failed to understand that I was supposed to crab and remain on the centerline so I ended up drifting over to 12C from 12R.  I got back on track and put it down quite nicely.  My landings are beginning to look pretty good.  Every once and a while I dent the runway a bit.  Working in-range radio and gate manager for Mesa has helped my radio work since I can listen and reply with ease.  I fumbled the first few times but I have it down now. 

Afterwards I took my PTS and Oral Exam guide to the gym and studied while I used the eliptical machine.  I am flying at 630am tomorrow so I’m off to hit the books and sleep for a bit. 

I did not fly yesterday (Monday) so I spent most of the day at the airport studying the Practical Test Standards book.  I have basically been going through it and reading the associated FARs.  I got home early which allowed me to meet up with my friend at the US Airways Flight Center.  We watched British takeoff and then my roommate and I raced home to beat the duststorm

Today was my first experience with a broken airplane.  I found a missing bolt while preflighting.  We switched to another one only to fill the tanks and find a fuel leak.  My instructor removed a bolt from the leaky airplane, put it on the original one and off we went.  While we waited to sort things out I took some pictures of the amazing sunrise.

I’m really starting to enjoy this whole experience.  I seem to have a flow going especially now that the written is over.  I can focus on absorbing all of this information and getting ready for the checkride. 

I flew every day this week as well has ground school Monday through Friday.  My instructor had to take the weekend off so I went up with another one.  He was pretty cool to fly with.  On Day 12 (Saturday) we flew a little farther south towards Pinal and Marana; discussed what we wanted to do with our careers, etc.  Before I knew it, we had flown for almost 2 hours.  I drove home took a nap and enjoyed the day. 

As I was driving to the airport on Sunday my instructor called me to say he couldn’t fly.  So I went for a little mini-roadtrip around the valley and enjoyed my day off.  It was nice to not fly for a day.  As much as I love it, it’s nice to just have a day to let it all set in.

Not much to report for these 3 days so I will merge them into one.

I flew every day though no ground school on the weekend.  I spent much of Saturday studying and then met up with my family for dinner.  Sunday was a crappy day.  I thought I could take the written exam at 10am.  But unfortunetly you cannot take an exam while others are studying for theirs.  So we all needed to wait for two guys to take their ATP written before we could start the test.  At 715pm I was on my way out the door.  But I passed and that’s all that counts.

Day 4:

I was still awake at 1am so I decided it would be a great idea to just stay up until I needed to jump in the shower at 345am.  The plan was to go to the airport, fly, and come home and sleep for a bit then head back for ground school.  I grabbed a Dr. Pepper and a Snickers bar and went out to preflight.   Something told me that wasn’t a great idea but I needed to stay awake. 

Our lesson today was steep turns and power on/off stalls.  I was a bit nervous about stalling the airplane (see where I’m going with this?) but now have an understanding as to how it works and how to prevent them.

Once I turned onto final it became quite clear that Dr. Pepper and Snickers aren’t a good combo when you haven’t slept in 36 hours.  Needless to say we taxiied in with urgency and I made a pit stop at home. 

Later that day I went out and purchased the ASA Prepware CDROM for the Private Written.  I recommend it to anyone who is studying for the written exam.  My parents are intown this week so it’s been tough trying to balance school, family time and study for the written.  Flew again today but no ground school since it was Saturday.