I am now a Private Pilot
On Saturday, 12 May 2007, Charlie McDougal, FAA Examiner officially released me onto the world. There were a few glitches, but I managed to not 'make him shorter' [landings were not too hard] nor did I 'continued to hit him with a shoe until he made me stop' [his way of saying I might deviate somewhat from the Practical Test Standards, but if I did it too much or performed unsafely, he would discontinue the test]. At any rate, he passed me on both the verbal portion and the flying portion. It was official at 1:30PM.He was very nice, tried to put me at ease. When I flubbed an answer, something stupid like saying an annual inspection was required every 24 months - DUH, he laughed. I said I was pretty nervous, and he said he'd Never heard anyone say they were nervous before. The flying portion went ok, and he didn't even make me do the ground maneuvers, just used my pattern work. We did all the requisite stuff, starting a long cross country flight, diversions, stalls, simulated engine loss, hood work, unusual attitudes, flying to a VOR, short field and soft field take offs and landings.
On the two landings, I had to use a forward slip to get down, and at the debrief, he said that I did that very well, "Must be a result of all your time in the Champ." Yup. Shannon found the picture of when I did my first solo, 13 September 1980, with Orville Fleming, my first flight instructor at Shallowwater, Texas. You can see the tee shirt hem has been cut away [I still have both the cutoff portion and the shirt]. The Champ didn't have flaps so slipping was about the only way to get down without increasing airspeed. I used the technique a lot. In fact, flaps scared me since they kind of make you balloon up when you add them. I didn't have to learn radio technique since it didn't have a radio [Orville would lean up- it was a tandem plane- and shout in my ear what he wanted me to do]. Or a battery, so you had to 'prop it' to start it [pilot in the cockpit, someone by the prop to turn it to activate the magnetos]. The Champ was a cool airplane.I called Bud immediately, then IM'd Shannon, then after I got home, called my mother. She of course, remembered that 3 days after I got my driver's license, I had a wreck [not bad, just a fender-bender]. I told her I planned to not fly for at least a week; she was satisfied. Today is the third day, I hope I can keep my intention, I do want to go flying! And it is a beautiful day. Maybe I'll just fly the simulator for a couple of approaches, then walk the poopers again, and do my obeisance to the gods of flight [bird feeders are filled]. I am happy, relieved [and tired].
posted by pdf Tex @ 8:26 AM
1 Comments:
Yay! You are now a triple threat: land, sea AND air!
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