First Passengers

Today was going to be an exiting day. I was going to take up my first passengers! I went and retrieved my brother and his son to go to Amarillo for lunch. Checked the weather, and there was a cloud layer over Amarillo. So much for that idea. We just decided to stay around Lubbock and go sightseeing. I got to the airport, and my plane had bald tires on the mains. I told the mechanic and said that he would check into it. Sure enough, the plane was slated for tires, he just hadn't done it, yet. He said to give him about thirty minutes, and she would be ready. We went to go grab a bite to eat and came back a little later. The plane was on the flight line and ready to go. We loaded up after preflight and attempted to start the thing. No luck. The battery made about one good effort and that was all she wrote. I went and got the owner and told him that she was dead in the water. He rounded up a ground power unit, and we finally got her lit. Everything from there was a non event. We headed out to the Southeast practice are and just went sightseeing for a while. After we got back, and I was on final approach, we caught a thermal right over the runway and got pushed back into the air a good deal. Just kept the nose down and made a good, notice I said good, not great landing that was just a little long, and a touch flat. Other than that, it was a good flight, and I rather enjoyed the day.

First Passengers

Checkride

A few weeks ago, I met up with a wonderful lady named Rosemary. Her and I went into a room in the back of the school and talked quite a while about what were my privileges and limitations on being a private pilot. Then we discussed the Federal Aviation Regulations for a while. After that,she had me draw up a flight plan to Mineral Wells, TX. She sat there and scrutinize3d my flight plan wan was very impressed with it. We talked for a while about lost procedures, minor emergencies, and what I would do if I had to make a forced landing in the middle of nowhere. Then I got to go preflight the plane, and get ready for showtime. We started out as if we were going to go to Mineral Wells, then she told me the weather was getting too bad and we needed to divert to Sweetwater. After doing my diversion, she told me the weather had just gotten terrible, and we had flown into a cloud. (Out comes the hood, I hate that damn thing). We did some climbs, descents, and turns. I had to track a VOR and do some unusual attitude recovery. Not really any big deal. then, we headed to the practice area for maneuvers. Steep turns were great, then we did stalls. She had me do all of my stalls while turning at 30 degrees of bank. I've never done them while turning. It was really different, but wasn't really an event. We did an engine out emergency and got to scare a couple of cows that were in my chosen landing field. (That just never gets old) After we started to return to the airport, the wind had started to get up, and we decided to call it a day.

Fast forward two weeks. I met up with Rosemary again and we departed for a while to go do some landings. She had me come in and do a normal landing just for me to make sure I was feeling it. I stuck it right where I wanted it to be, and she was impressed. Next was a short field takeoff. I popped that thing into the air and climbed out nice and short, followed with a short field landing that was spot on to the inch! Soft field takeoff, the damn plane liked the runway, and I swear I carried that damn nosewheel a half a mile before that plane finally came up. Soft field landing was a good one. Nice and nose high, touched down right at 50 knots. I was on fire. We headed back to the school and signed that nice little Temporary Airmans Certificate.

It is now official, I'm a Private Pilot!!!