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!!!

Playing around

I woke up this morning to find myself really, really needing to get in the air. decided to go out to the airport and see if I could steal a plane for a little while. Low and behold, my favorite cross country machine was there and not buried in the back of the hanger. I drew up a flight plan for a quick flight about 55 NM straight out and back, and had a CFI endorse my flight. Got a weather brief and was informed that there was nothing anywhere to be concerned about. The briefer told me that there were stratiform at FL250, but I didn't even see them. Winds aloft were nil. Preflight and call ground. Departed a little bit after 8am. This was one of those days when after you get up about 500 feet off the ground, all sensation of movement is gone. The flight out was unbelievably smooth. After I came home, the airport started to give me vectors for traffic. I did not want to land, yet, so I announced that I was just going to fly around town for a little while and just go sight seeing. Approach said no problem, just call us when you want to come home. Who knew a 110 NM round trip flight could take three hours? We just don't get days like this and I wanted to appreciate as much of it as I could. I only needed six tenths of solo cross country time to finish requirments. But I was just having too much fun.

It's time

All the I's are dotted and the T's have been crossed. The logbooks have been tallied. All of the requirements have been met. I need .6 of solo cross country time that I'm going to knock out Saturday weather permitting. (if not,just as soon as I can). My checkride has been scheduled for January 17 at 9:00am. I'm nervous as hell, but all I keep hearing from everybody is "relax and enjoy yourself, you'll do fine." I sure do hope so. This is a very big deal for me and is another milestone in my new career path. So, if you read this, wish me luck, and say a little prayer for me.

Night Cross Country

Took off for my night Cross Country tonight. My niece decided to tag along for the flight, she is twelve years old and hadn't had the chance to go up in a GA aircraft. We departed Lubbck about 7:00 p.m. and headed north to Amarillo (93NM). Decided to climb on up to 7,500 heading out and had a very smooth flight. We had three other small airports on the route and I had marked them as checkpoints. My instructor is looking at the nav logs and is asking why I labeled the airports along the way. I just told him, "I'll activate the lights and use them for checkpoints." "Hmmm what if the lights don't work?" "Look for the next checkpoint" "OK fair enough" Off we go. I had to ask my niece if she was still alive. Never heard a peep out of her unless I asked. She was just sitting there enjoying the scenery. Landed at Amarillo. (Not really hard runway 22 is 13500 X 200) Headed back to Lubbock at 8,500 We were just outside of Amarillo and only at about 4,500 feet when my instructor asked me "While we are over this rough, rugged, canyon terrain, what would you do if you lost your engine right now?" I told him I'd run procedures, try to find somewhere to land and if I ended up descending into the canyon, I turn the landing light on to see if I could see anything. If I didn't like what I saw, I'd just turn the light back off, and unplug my headset so I couldn't hear the passengers screaming. We made it back to Lubbock with very few bumps at all. Had a good flight and got to take a tag a long with me. All in all, a good flight.

First Solo Cross Country

Well, It was a good day to fly, so I figured no time like the present. Departed Lubbock at 11:00a.m. headed to Plainview (30nm)Childress(72nm), Floydada (57nm)then back to Lubbock(34nm). We had an EAA Young Eagles joyride going on this morning, so LBB airspace was hectic. I was eighth in line for takeoff and finally got in the air. After contacting departure, I was told to fly heading 100 for traffic. (I need to be on heading 001) I figured I'd get on my way fairly quick, but departure forgot me. After flying east for ten minutes, I called to see if I was clear to turn on course "Archer 354 Mike Romeo, sorry, we forgot you, turn on course."Headed up to Plainview, Landed, and took back off. Now the second leg, heading to Childress. Turned and headed to heading 069 and enjoyed the flight. Cruised along at 5,500 and it got just a little bumpy when I got to the Caprock. At the Caprock there is nearly a two thousand foot elevation change. I know that isn't anything new to some of the people up north, but in West Texas, the land of 10,000 runways, it is different. Beautiful to see from the air. I landed in Childress about 12:30 and met up with the parents for lunch, the departed about 1:30. Now it is 90 degrees, and I gotta fly home in this. (Good thing I took the Archer, AC:D) Well, the roller coaster began. As soon as I took off from Childress, heading to Floydad, It was bumpy. No matter the altitude, I couldn't find anything smooth. So, I just rode it out. Touched down at Floydada, and enjoyed the world not shaking, rolling, or pitching for a few minutes. Then I left for Lubbock, 20 minutes of bumping around again. Got back into Lubbock about 3:00 and was tired. It was a good flight, I'm learning to just deal with the turbulence and let the ride happen. And thank goodness for AC

First Cross Country

The first cross country is out of the way as of today. We put 3.2 on the Hobbs starting at 1000 this morning. I got out to the airport, not a cloud in sight and the windsocks weren't even twitching. (hmmm I am in West Texas). We had drawn up our course a couple of weeks ago and figured on KLBB (Lubbock) to KAMA (Amarillo) to KCVN(Clovis NM)back to Lubbock. This is kinda a standard dual CC at the school. Called for the weather brief. (That's the first one I ever called for) The briefer was very cautious and told me there was a front that was stationary around Amarillo, but the forecast said if it moved, it would head north. Other than that, no worries and have a good flight. I was flying a Archer III today instead of my Cherokee, but no big deal (just costs 30 dollar an hour more to rent) After we took off and activated our flight plan, we got a vector from the tower to turn to heading 010. OK that is where we are going anyway. The flight to Amarillo only took 39 minutes due to a 17 knot tailwind. The only complaint I had about that leg, was some moderate chop about halfway there, but we made it in one piece. I was unaware that the Amarillo airport used to be a bomber base many moons ago and that runway is a monster. My landing into AMA was a little lackluster. I flared it too high, but got it recovered and touched down fairly nicely. We took back off and departed and called the tower to tell them we were on our way to Clovis, they handed us off to AMA departure, who turned us over to Albuquerque Center almost immediately. Very relaxing flight in. No turbulence to battle with, good smooth sailing. After doing a few touch and goes at Clovis, we decided to take a break and made a full stop. My instructor' instructor is the FBO at CVN so we stopped to say hi and so my instructor could introduce me. Turns out this guy is 84 years old and is still instrucing (CFI, CFII, and multi instrument) He truly was a n amazing man and just a wealth of knowledge to talk to. (Plus he was retired from a lifetime career as an Air Force pilot). Coming back to Lubbock was interesting, high density altitude and heat kept performance down considerably, and the turbulence was getting going pretty good. After we got back to Lubbock and deplaned, I was ready for a beer. That has been my longest in the plane so far.

First Solo

Met up with Josh at 8 o'clock on a Saturday. Everything was just a regular routine, for the most part. We stayed in the pattern at the airport, and did two touch and goes. When we were coming around for the third one, he announced to the tower that this would be a full stop landing. What the hell!?!? Taxi back to the ramp, and go through shutdown. We head inside, and Josh asked for my logbook. He filled out my solo endorsement and asked if I was ready. I told him "You know more about it than I do." He told me to go give him three good ones (Landings) and that he would be listening. I went back out with a rather odd feeling in my stomach. After calling the tower for taxi clearance, I had to taxi over two miles to get to the active runway. This gives you plenty of time to think about what is about to happen. "I'm either going to do this, or I'm gonna end up in a smoking hulk at the end of the runway."

Anyway, I pull up to the hold short line and call the tower. Tower replies with "Cherokee 8 Mike Charlie, cleared for take off, runway 26, make right closed traffic" I pull out onto the runway and begin my take off roll. the whole time I'm thinking to myself "You can stop this any time, You can stop this anytime." next thing I know, the nose is in the air, then the plane is leaving the safety of Terra firma, and climbing skyward. "Holy shit, I'm in a an airplane by myself, and now I have to land the damn thing!" I come around and start setting up for landing. I look and everything is spot on. Pitch, airspeed, glide path, everything is good as gold. "My god, I'm gonna pull this off, after all." The landing was one of the best I ever had. After two more trip around the pattern and two more good landings, I taxied back to the school and was greeted by cameras, handshakes, and the congratulatory "Good job." I spent the rest of the day just beaming. My wife was ecstatic after I told her that I soloed. Mom, on the other hand was glad that she didn't know about it. I kept it to myself as not to raise too many worries about my well being. All in all, I had a great day and it is not soon to be forgotten